The 4th GREEN IMAGE FILM FESTIVAL

Russia / 2016 / Producer: Sergei BRAGIN / Director: Ivan TVERDOVSKY / Production: OOO Production Center "KINOFEST" / 63min / English with Japanese Subtitles

To learn the weather for tomorrow is easy now. It is necessary to press the button on your device. But how and who “makes the weather”? You can find out in this film.

https://vimeo.com/197267520

Japan / 2016 / Producer: TSUTA Tetsuichiro / Director: TSUTA Tetsuichiro / Production: nikonikofilm / 30min / Japanese with English Subtitles

Director’s TalkMr. TSUTA Tetsuichiro

France / 2016 / Producer: Cecile de La GARANDERI / Director: Vincent PERAZIO / Production: Via Decouvertes / 53min / English with Japanese Subtitles

99% of the plastic that should be floating in the oceans is missing. In this investigation, scientists embark in search of the micro-plastics. Small, mostly invisible, toxic, they are home to a new ecosystem: the plastisphere. But where are they? Ingested by organisms? Buried under the ocean floor? And what is the impact of them entering the food chain?

https://youtu.be/DoAJ1tTCA0A

Japan / 2016 / Producer: OKI Mami / Director: HIGASHI Miki / Production: Kumamoto Kenmin Television Corporation / 46min / Japanese with English Subtitles

Director’s TalkMs. HIGASHI Miki

France / 2016 / Producer: Nina ARDOIN / Director: Manuel DEILLER / Production: Artcam Production / 69min / English, French with Japanese Subtitles

In the Arctic, the Norwegian city of Longyearbyen, located in the Svalbard archipelago, extracts coal for one hundred years as an energic and economic source, which stirs many environmental paradoxes.

https://vimeo.com/166927098

Japan / 2016 / Producer: HAMANAKA Takamitsu / Director: HAMANAKA Takamitsu / Production: Hokkaido Television Broadcasting Co., Ltd / 48min / Japanese

Director’s TalkMr. HAMANAKA Takamitsu

（Japan / 2015 / Producer: NAKAMURA Mayu / Director: NAKAMURA Mayu / Production: Omphalos Pictures / 98min / Japanese

https://youtu.be/6YJtdlHlSEI

Switzerland, France / 2016 / Producer: Christian LELONG, Mark OLEXA, Francesca SCALISI / Director: Francesca SCALISI, Mark OLEXA / Production: / 60min / Japanese, English

In the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a Japanese farmer ekes out a solitary existence within the radiation red zone. As Naoto wanders through the empty streets of his hometown, he confronts the remnants of a lost society. Shooting on lustrous film stock, directors Mark Olexa and Francesca Scalisi reveal the surreal scope and devastation of the nuclear tragedy, and the stubborn signs of life among the ruins: a touching encounter with an ostrich; a round of golf at an abandoned driving range; and a breathtaking eruption of music and emotion on the stage of a karaoke bar. As Naoto struggles to build a new life within this post-apocalyptic landscape, Half-Life in Fukushima offers a stunning vision of a place where the ghosts of the past meet the perils of the future.

Directors’ TalkMs. NAKAMURA Mayu / Ms. SCALISI Francesca / Mr. OLEXA Mark

Japan / 2015 / Producer: HITOMI Tsuyoshi / Director: HITOMI Tsuyoshi / Production: Television Osaka / 99min / Japanese

A little after the end of the WWII, Haruko was given to Tennoji-Zoo as a gift from the King of Thailand. Since then, she has been loved by the people of Osaka for over 60 years. However, she gradually became hesitant to go out into the sunny playground and such unusual behaviors start to show. Although constant battle of her old age continued, she kept on entertaining the visitors and her caretakers stayed by her side all the way until the very end. With no frills but only the truth, this documentary portraits the love and miracle of life itself.

https://youtu.be/2Ntk5azECC8

Director’s TalkMr. HITOMI Tsuyoshi

Germany / 2014 / Producer: Uwe MUELLER / Director: Uwe MUELLER / Production: Capricornum Film / 44min / English with Japanese Subtitles

For decades, barbed wire divided Germany. It separated two political systems, families and friends and made border crossings almost impossible. In the shadow of the restricted zone, which no-one was permitted to enter, a refuge developed for threatened plants and animals. Rarities such as the black stork, otter, Wanstschrecke, which is a large grasshopper, and the whinchat have found ideal living conditions here in the marshy land, the moors, pioneer woodlands and sparse grasslands of Germany’s Green Belt. In excess of 5,000 different animal and plant species live in this unique habitat; more than 600 of them are critically endangered. Today, this former ‘no-man’s land’ is Germany’s longest wildlife corridor ?  and a part of the Europe’s Green Belt. The film reveals the ways and paths wild cats, sea eagles, beavers and whinchats used to use and how they claim the former border strip for their own. Breathtaking wildlife observations and thoughtful observations of contemporary witnesses and conservationists form a fascinating bond of stories and history.

Japan / 2016 / Producer: TAKAYAMA Hitoshi, ASAI Takehiro, YAJIMA Atsushi, IKEMOTO Tadashi, MATSUMOTO Koichi / Director: KANDA Akira, FUJIMATSU Shotaro / Production: NHK / 58min / Japanese

The Fukushima accident in March 2011 turned the surrounding villages into a desolate land. Without a human presence wildlife thrives there. Houses are torn down by wildly grown plants and black rats that gnaw wood pillars. The land is also roamed by predators like civets, macaques, and wild boars. A project is now underway to investigate the deserted areas by attaching a GPS device, dosimeter, and camera to the wild boars and record the conditions of the once Arcadian farming hills. The program also explores the first ever research of the effects of radiation on primate species.

Directors’ TalkMr. KANDA Akira, Mr. FUJIMATSU Shotaro

Finland / 2013 / Producer: Pertti VEIJALAINEN / Director: Anna-Karin GRONROOS / Production: Illume Ltd / 56min / English, Finnish, Chinese with Japanese Subtitles

When one billion rural Chinese move to cities, our planet will change irreversibly. Finnish professor Eero Paloheimo and Chinese business magnate Zhang Yue are going to save the world by reinventing the city. Their utopias are very different: Zhang plans to build the tallest and most ecological building on Earth, an Eco-city in the shape of a skyscraper, built at world record speed. Paloheimo has designed a unique clean-tech test laboratory city, and struggles to get it built in a flourishing valley outside Beijing. Is the future of urban mankind in the cherry valleys of China or high up in the sky?

https://vimeo.com/78913399

Japan / 2016 / Producer: KUBO Kazunari / Director: SASAKI Akira / Production: Yamaguchi Broadcasting Co.,Ltd. / 87min / Japanese

After World War 2, Japan experienced an economic boom, and became a wealthy society. One couple fought against the materialism, choosing otherwise to live deep in the mountains without electricity, a telephone, or plumbing. They are Torao Tanaka (Aged 93) and his wife Fusako(88). Soon after Torao returned home from the battlefields of World War 2, he and his wife bought a mountain near their home village. Together, they cultivated the rugged terrain in order to live their lives there. Torao proclaims, “We want to plant and raise enough rice and vegetables for ourselves.” They became self sufficient. Even when Torao became serious ill, he persevered and they continued to live the mountain life. The mountain’s emotional importance far outweighed the effects of aging. Passing away, Torao’s daughters reflected on him and his wife’s lives: “We learned from them how to live good life for ourselves.” “We also want to live as our parents did.” With this, Torao and Fusako’s daughters look up to their parents as a model of how we should live.

https://youtu.be/IAdlWPG9bD4

Director’s TalkMr. SASAKI Akira

Switzerland, Kyrgyztan / 2015 / Producer: Nadine BOLLER / Director: Nadine BOLLER / Production: Nadine BOLLER / 10min / Kyrgyz with English & Japanese Subtitles

In the middle of the steppes of Kyrgyzstan an old foundation dating back to the Soviet era is gaining more and more importance in the nomads' daily life.

Japan / 2015 / Producer: YATABE Yoshihiko, NAGAKURA Norio / Director: KOBAYASHI Shigeru / Production: Kasama Film / 99min / Japanese with English Subtitles / English

"I used to think that village life was too tough to bear but now it's a lot of fun, working with the guys," says Mr. Kogure, one of the people who moved from Tokyo to snowy rural Japan. Over the years Kogure and his wife have organically formed a circle of friends. They've never grown rice before but they learn as they go. All communal activities become an excuse for a party around the hearth that end up in song.

When they are restoring an abandoned paddy, they excavate an old irrigation system which connects them with the lost ways of the rural life. It's one of the serendipitous moments that makes everything worthwhile for them. They grow organic rice not necessarily to be eco-friendly but simply because they do not know how to use chemicals. They relish the physically demanding work of manually growing and harvesting their crop.

With the arrival of winter the whole village is buried under 4 meters of snow. The village is frozen over but Kogure and the company know how to enjoy life. They have each other and humor to help themselves through the long winter until spring comes and village life begins again.

On March 12, 2011 in the wake of the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, a tremendous earthquake shook the area, damaging many houses, including Kogure and his friends'. The construction experts advised them that the damage was beyond repair. But they refuse to be discouraged. Quietly they set about restoring the buildings with determination.

https://youtu.be/tEMjSS0G_vM

Filmmakers’ TalkMr. KOBAYASHI Shigeru(Director) / Mr. NAGAKURA Norio(Producer) / MC: Mr. OHKAWARA Michiyuki(Editor in Chief of Japan Housing Newspaper)

Special Program : Ancient Wisdom of a Making Use of Forest – Japanese Wooden Construction Method “ITAKURA”

[Guest Speaker]

Mr. ANDO KunihiroProfessor Emiritus of Tuskuba university / President of Satoyama Archi Labo Inc.

[Panelist]

Mr. TAKEYAMA ShiroGeneral Manager of public relations of Montbell Co. Ltd.

[Facilitator]

ODACHI AikoExective Director of GREEN IMAGE Film Comitee

[Screening]

Learning Place Connecting City and Forest – Wooden School Building in Urban City
Japan / 2017 / 14min / Japanese

Award Ceremony

[Jurors]

Mr. UKAI SatoshiProfessor of Graduate School of Language and Society, Hitotsubashi University
Mr. OKADA HidenoriCurator of Film, National Film Center, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo
Ms. YASUKAWA KasumiPrincipal Reseach Manager of Renewable Energy Research Center, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

[Greeting from the President of GREEN FILM Committee]

SATO TadaoFilm critic, President of Japan Academy of the Moving Image