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まほろば

Two girls walk down a snowy street on their way home from school. They are residents of "Mahoroba," a place hugged by mountains and sheltered by snow. Winter, the girl in the grey coat, freezes her fingers in the falling snow to make a cold white tower. The girl in the yellow coat, Spring, is staring at her from a little distance. The winter girl in love with the snow is forever innocent. She will remain closed and eventually die. The girl in spring is saddened by this and destroys the winter girl's "mahoroba". The winter girl learns that she cannot resist the changing seasons. The day of adulthood is coming, but the innocence of Winter's youth prevents her from degrading herself, even to the point of death. The spring girl hugs the winter girl's shoulder. The colour of red blood can be seen through the cheeks of the girls. This is the beautiful myth of the girl's misery. Mahoroba, caged in the snow, will eventually be forgotten one day. Somewhere, the birds of spring are singing.

まほろば

NR 1980
花咲くオトメ

From the introductory narration to the title backdrop where Sayuri Yoshinaga sings, "A cute bud becomes a flower, and even after the flower falls, the truth remains. This is the intro to the song where the three completely different moods are perfectly connected. The girl buries a sunflower seed and a doll called "my baby" together in the ground and takes revenge on the other young man. In spite of this, the screenplay is not at all realistic or tragic, which amplifies the cruelty of the fairy tale. The cruelty of the story is amplified.

花咲くオトメ

NR 1980
教訓 I

One day at a high school, the headteacher suddenly announces that a draft is to be imposed at the morning assembly. The headteacher suddenly announces that there will be a draft. The idea that a school is like a nation and that one must have the military power to protect one's own school could be a satire for the sake of satire, but as in the episode where the principal is a Chiba native, the term Chiba native is used as if it were a racial term. The film maintains the quality of the gags that generate laughter, as in the episode where the school principal uses the word "Chiba-kenjin" as if it were a racial slur, making it an excellent comedy.

教訓 I

NR 1980
6/8 Time

In this work performed in 1976 (edited to a video work in 1981), Imai flashes a strobe light directly at the audience seated inside the auditorium in the KBS Laseirum Center in Kyoto and photographs their reaction with his camera. The audience who had expected to see a moving image projected on the surface of a dome-shaped screen on the ceiling is submerged in the dark for the first few minutes. They are left to listen to the recorded sound of a heartbeat and the metronome set to the rhythm of 6/8 time. The sudden eruption of the strobe light as Imai presses the shutter of his camera synchronized to the ringing sound of the metronome brings out diverse reaction from the audience: some cover their eyes with their hands or the pamphlet, while others directly look at the camera and strike some funny poses.

6/8 Time

NR 1981
30 x 30

Considered the father of video art in China, Zhang Peili has been producing incisive, internationally acclaimed works since the 1980s, building a career that ushered in and encompasses the entire history of Chinese video art. Keenly critical of his country’s authoritarian leadership, he sees his work as a form of protest revealing the forces shaping Chinese society and the lives of its citizens. Inspired by the endurance-testing videos of artists like Andy Warhol and Bruce Nauman, Zhang uses mundane, repetitive actions and scenes to demonstrate the absurdity and destructiveness of ritualized behavior and social norms. 30 x 30 (1988), his first video work, is an intentionally excruciating three-hour loop of a pair of gloved hands shattering a mirror, then piecing it back together—an acerbic critique of the rage for watching television, yet another form of thought-control in China.

30 x 30

5.0 1988
Over the Threshold

Over the Threshold is about intermarriage between Japanese and Westerners. The filmmakers are a husband and wife team who met during their studies at Britain's National Film & TV School in London. The film documents their first visit to Japan together, during which husband Tezuka introduces his non-Japanese wife to his family (his father coincidentally was the creator of the cartoon series Astro Boy). The point-of-view is largely that of the 'outsider', and much of the film is devoted to her attempts to find out what it means to 'fit in' in Japan. At a deeper level, the film amounts to a socio-cultural study of a Japanese family, who seem to adapt surprisingly well to having a 'geijan' or foreigner in their midst. This aspect is strengthened by the incorporation of interviews with other Western women who have married Japanese husbands.

Over the Threshold

NR 1989
FloorLight

A masterpiece of the creator who has continually been expressing the minimal world overflowing with solitude by fixing the gaze on a subject. The camera does not take its focus off the underpass ground. In the beginning of the piece, Ohtani films the floor as he walks, and the paving looks like any ordinary paving. When he stops and repeatedly zooms focus on the floor, the pale floor reflected by fluorescent light starts to transfigure into some cosmic form; a field of clouds or an ocean surface. Eventually, when the humming of the film particles vibrate the light on the floor like a mysterious organism, we encounter the power of minimal gaze that can only be expressed with 8mm film.

FloorLight

NR 1987
Koukou ~ Dazzle of Surface

Roofs of tin and tile, passing by trains and cars, walls of modern buildings – surfaces of solid objects and those of soft, such as water – sunlight evenly shines on both those surfaces. These lights change into various expressions with the characteristics of the objects they reflect on. By controlling light, Hirata exaggerates the reflecting rays. This act purifies the light itself and is solely an attempt to abstract the world of vision that is formed by the reflecting of radiant energy. The power of the beam is relative to that of the filmmaker's gaze. The rays eventually gather, become a mass, and repeat intense expansion and contraction. At this moment, Hirata, using light as the medium, is facing this world with complete precision.

Koukou ~ Dazzle of Surface

NR 1986
Pearl in Hades

Light reflecting on a dark water surface, a drop of light with blurred outline, the sea at night, illumination in the distance, a close-up of a lying female – these are basically all the objects that appear in this piece. Nevertheless, the scale of the story this simple composition weaves out is awesome. The first piece made after moving into Tokyo, this work sieves out Nishimura's negative feelings such as anxiety and solitude and the scent of death from the dark water face. So who is this lying woman, her blank gaze that at some moments gleam with light? The mystery deepens and interpretations expand. Nishimura's true masterpiece, aiming to make "film that the audience can conceive without strain".

Pearl in Hades

NR 1988
W

When we try to change the miscellaneous world that surrounds us into a truly simple form, what will we find? Working in mass media, Mukahira constantly sets various experimental challenges towards the film medium. This super 8 piece is one of his earlier works. Wrapping the living consciousness with gloves and tracing the things around us as triangular, lozenge, circular figures, the world turns out to be a very unexpected collection of inorganic symbols. If such is the case, would the person who is the so-called "symbol" of this country be coded indifferently as well?

W

7.0 1989
Hello God

Byeong-Tae, who suffers from cerebral palsy, comes to the station office by mistake. He meets Min-Wu, who is caught on charge of a free ride and Chun-Ja, who tried to kill herself. Chun-Ja steals the purse of Byeong-Tae and causes trouble. The pregnant Chun-Ja gives birth to a baby in a barn of farmer, and she marries Min-Wu in a church. They arrive to the Chun-Ja's hometown, but Byeong-Tae separates from them in order to go to Kyeong-Ju. He returns home after traveling Kyeong-Ju.

Hello God

NR 1987
Rainbow

The children are the protagonists. They believe in the old saying that for their dreams to come true in the world of adults who seem freer, they have to go on a dangerous trip to a flower spring and drink its water. Children who arrive at the beach succeed in stealing small fishing boats. They are adventurous children, but they have no experience and their physical condition is weak. The voyage becomes troublesome and they end up drifted on an uninhabited island. Meanwhile, their school and home were in an uproar over their disappearance. Through this adventure, they realize what a world of compassion will not change even when they grow up, and understand the world of adults.

Rainbow

NR 1980
Five Warriors

After finishing 10 years imprisonment at a prison in the midland of China, Wang Pae recruits vagabond warriors and attempts to become the leader of Hokaksa martial art group. He defeats Deok Hwa-Sang of Hokaksa and dominates the area. Chin-Hwa (female) barely escapes at the battle field and asks Hokaksa alumni help him. She learns martial art and visits Wang Pae at Hokaksa together with Mukong, Yoo Mi-Kwang, and Cheol-San, etc.. Wang Pae's rudeness and violence was too high at Hokaksa. Four alumni ask Wang Pae to regret his wrong doings and follow the correct way, but are rejected. At last, Wang Pae is defeated in the fighting.

Five Warriors

NR 1980
Fight at Hong Kong Ranch

In the fight against Ma Sa-Keol, or the head of gang, to protest Ma's exploitation at a business district at Hong Kong, a Korean youth named Han Seok is killed by Ma's subordinates. Since then, Wang, who is the owner of a store of business district, has been bothered by Han Yong's careless action. On the other hand, Ma threatens Su-Ryeon, or the owner of a ranch at new development site, to deprive him of the ranch, while both Han Yong and Wang are chased by Ma and his followers to go to the ranch. Han Yong, who is Han Seok's younger brother, disguised himself as a chief cooker at a restaurant to look for the one who killed his elder brother. The owner of the ranch is also Korean. In the fierce fight at the ranch, they defeat Ma and his followers.

Fight at Hong Kong Ranch

7.0 1981
Light Pink Coloured Skirt

A guitarist of lower class musical troupe fails to get a job owing to his humble guitar. One day, he earns as much as 83,000 won, and is pleased to go back to his home. On the way to home, he helps Ok-Hee and her mother. But, Ok-Hee's mother steals the money and flees. On the following day, Ok-Hee asks him to return her mother. He and Ok-Hee take a trip here and there, and share sorrow and pleasure with some isolated persons. Ok-Hee steadily forgets the image of her mother who committed wrong things. Instead, Ok-Hee imagines good shape of her mother, which becomes her dream and life objective. In their journey up to the island Jukdo, Ok-Hee discovers that only her mother's light pink colored skirt is left.

Light Pink Coloured Skirt

NR 1981
Brown-tailed Moth of Kuryong

Park Mun-Hee shows the Buddhist image of Ok-Kuem, one of her possession, to a Chinese archeologist but the image is exchanged with a bogus. Park Mun-Hee sets out to China with a detective Dong-Jin to search for the image, but it is after the archeologist is already murdered and the Buddhist image has disappeared. One day, an English man James steals the image from an antique shop, but he is too murdered afterward by a Japanese Kanemura. Dong-Jin and his companies succeed in taking the image after fighting with Jang-Bu and his gang. Mun-Hee donates the image to the Government so that they can keep it in the museum.

Brown-tailed Moth of Kuryong

NR 1984
Pass Through the City

Pass Through the City documents a tripartite performance staged by Park Hyunki in Daegu on March 22, 1981. Park fabricated two enormous stones out of resin and embedded mirrors onto their surfaces. One stone was installed on the floor of Maekhyang Gallery, while the other was loaded onto a sixteen-meter truck and driven through downtown Daegu for forty minutes. After the ride, the stone was moved to a busy sidewalk by a bank, where passersby touched its surface, gathered around it, and looked at themselves in the mirror. The work was recorded on 16mm film.

Pass Through the City

NR 1981