Sponsor
U-M Center for Japanese Studies
Community Partner
Ann Arbor Public Schools Film Classes
Donor
Therese Pasquesi
Chasing Birds
Una Lorenzen
Montreal, QC, Canada | 2022 | 8 | DCP
United States Premiere
When the world turns upside down, we have a choice: to firmly hang on to old ideas or to embrace the new view. In Chasing Birds we follow a little girl who playfully chases a bird throughout a chaotic and transformational period. Chasing Birds is a story about disconnection between people and how change can be a terrifying or invigorating experience, depending what angle you see it from. Inspired by the director’s own anxiety and her daughter Sunneva.
Becoming Fossil
Petra Kuppers
Ypsilanti, MI | 2023 | 13 | digital file
World Premiere
"Becoming Fossil" invites viewers to become time travelers through kaleidoscopic sensations of touch and elemental change. Join in and travel backward and forward in time around our small precious planet. Ride the waves of climate emergencies, and experience both extinction and resiliency in human and more-than-human touches.
Nothing Special
Efrat Berger
Jerusalem, Israel | 2023 | 15 | DCP
World Premiere
Between four walls, two women are waiting. One let death come and get her. The other let her life finally begin. Based on a recorded conversation, the film simulates their attempt to escape what they can’t help but experience, as they realize that “nothing” can sometimes be special.
Humoresque
Shinya Isobe
Kamakura, Japan | 2022 | 45 | DCP
United States Premiere
Set in a fictional world, this narrative film combines the polar qualities of fiction and documentary, depicting a mother and child living in a desolate landscape. The main actors, a mother and son, are the author’s family members, and their relationship is traced in the story. Most of the scenes in the film are inspired by their real-life appearance. This work approaches the uncertainty of the boundary between truth and falsehood, one of the characteristics of film expression, by transforming and expanding the distance and relationships in home movie filming as a method of filmmaking while utilizing them as they are.