Nao Yoshigai

For some reason, there is very little snow in the winter of 2020 on the Shiretoko Peninsula, a special place located in the northernmost part of Japan where rare wild animals coexist with humans. The typical drift ice hasn’t appeared yet, either. Although worried, the inhabitants of the village Shari continue their daily affairs: the shepherd bakes buns, a hunter prepares a dinner with venison, a fisherman picks up trash from the sea and another person observes flying squirrels in her garden.

Rolling along on a bike or floating in a doctor’s office’s seasonal hamster display, Wheel Music explores the aesthetic feeling and social character of Sendagi, an old town in Tokyo under urban development in preparation for the planned Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics.

A shadow reveals its form from the darkness underground. It communicates with a woman's consciousness, and she begins to see fragmentary memories that transcend time and place, as if daydreaming. The shadow takes on the woman's form and travels. Situating itself in places invisible from above ground, it traces what once happened there, listening to the human memories buried in the flow of time.

A helpless woman confronts a “black object” with a power greater than hers. The “black object” shoots her questions. The woman has answers to these questions, but can’t say them aloud. She feels up against the wall, and begins to throw up beautiful colorful flowers instead of speaking.

Last gasps of the Seiza-sha house in Kyoto devoted to Torajiro Okada’s still-sitting meditation method from the late-Meiji era’s intercultural ferment. -JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film

A storyteller of peace serves as a guide in the “Gama”—natural caves where many local people lost their lives during the Battle of Okinawa. The woman in blue standing by his side represents the intersection of the present and the past.

Ayano is out of step with other people her own age. The growing obsession with fruit connects them to Satoko, who tends to the trees. A missing pear and a frightening item left behind may mean something else is near. Perhaps something sinister.

A girl and a boy brave the cold sea at dusk to observe the little wonders of nature. Equipped with cell phones, they reveal their fascination in front of the luminescent and strange creatures that inhabit the sea. A carefree film that reminds us of the fragile beauty of our planet.

Along with vegetable and sea life, the camera is but one element of a sensual ride along a coastal road and playground in this masterful short.

A female musician lives in a traditionally built Japanese house. There are spirits running around the house that she cannot see. The spirits are delivering smells that they collect around the house to a being inside the water of the bath tub.

After her mother’s death, Nao retreats to a Zen temple to wrestle with grief. Blending family archives, hand-drawn animation and performance art, this seductively meditative documentary explores suffering, and the gentle art of transcending it.

A nine-minute film with intricate hand-drawn animation and dance.

A misty body of water holds the moving human form, flesh, glass, and fabric placed in iridescent relation. -JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film