Shinkichi Noda

A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship.

A mysterious video has been linked to a number of deaths, and when an inquisitive journalist finds the tape and views it herself, she sets in motion a chain of events that puts her own life in danger.

A documentary focusing on the things and animals necessary for the Olympics in Tokyo in 1964.

Nippon Rayon has produced clothing of assorted colors, designs, and materials. Their nylon products are not limited to fashion but extend to all aspects of life. The film features shots of models wearing vibrant outfits as well as products being manufactured on the factory floor.

First film in the festival trilogy

Film by Noda Shinkichi

On the nights of the 14th, 15th, and 16th of August, the obon festival takes over the streets of the Niino community of Nagano Prefecture. At its conclusion, a practitioner of shugendo, a syncretic tradition combining elements of Buddhism and Shinto, serves as priest to send off the spirits of ancestors past that have journeyed back for Obon as well as the new spirits of those deceased within the past year. The spirits ride the flames of faceted lanterns that are lit and drift off into the eastern sky.

The film consists of fragmentary images, of water flowing in stone-paved gutters, narrow alleys and the rooftops of buildings, afternoon and night views of the city glimpsed through a car window, the fishing harbor and the ruins of a church destroyed by the atomic bomb.

Documentary by Noda Shinkichi

A folk festival with a three-hundred-year history held at Suwa Shrine in Toya in Sagamihara City’s Midori Ward, Kanagawa Prefecture. Within the shrine grounds, a father, mother, and child lion line up and dance to the sound of flutes and singing. As a prayer dance that retains a simplicity passed down since the 17th century, it is unique in Japan.

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This film presents a contemporary Tokaido completely transformed from the scenery famously portrayed by Utagawa Hiroshige in the Edo Period: a landscape traversed by rail tracks and busy with cars coming and going. Heading west from Tokyo, we encounter the traditional industries that developed in the cities and localities along the highway, as well as the mechanical industries that arrived with modernization. The journey continues to Kyoto and Osaka

Documentary by Noda Shinkichi

In the mountains of the Chubu region, farmers grow legumes, buckwheat, and millet. Silk cultivation and forestry are also important sources of income. Paper production has flourished since the Meiji Period, and precision-instrument factories have been built for assembling lenses and timepiec- es. The natural environment is harsh but beautiful, and a local tourist industry has also developed.

This film documents the Sagicho Fire Festival, which takes place in the eight communities constituting Oiso, a town located in the warm climate along Kanagawa Prefecture’s Sagami Bay. It begins at the year’s end with an event in which children take the lead. With the new year, an okariya shelter is constructed in town for the dosojin guardian god. Then, saito bonfire structures are burned on the beach and young men perform a tug of war in the water.

The Yokohama and Kawasaki factory district, industrial heart of Japan. In 1953, a Kanagawa Prefecture May Day (International Workers’ Day) took place here, spreading links of solidarity among workers. Workers criticize the Korean War-era transformation of Japan into an American military base and protest remilitarization. A new print will be screened.

The Tone River flows from the Mikuni Mountains through the Kanto Plain. The film follows its path from its source to Choshi and into the Pacific Ocean, documenting the lifestyles and industries along its banks and the history of its management.

Documentary directed by Noda Shinkichi

The Kashima Dance is performed in the area of Kanagawa Prefecture extending from Odawara City along the western shore of Sagami Bay. This film documents a dedication of the dance on the grounds of Yoshihama’s Soga Shrine performed in August by twenty-five people. The film also records the Sasara women’s dance which the women’s association and the elders of Minami Ashigara City in the west of Kanagawa Prefecture revived after a fifty-year hiatus

A documentary about the iconoclastic painter Yamashita Kikuji that depicts the 1969 Tomurai-ten (Funeral Exhibition) of then-recent work by Yamashita and his late older brother Taniguchi Kunbi, the living space he shared with his wife and his pet owls, and scenes of the artist at work.