Screenplay: Alison Tilson
Cinematographer: Ian Baker
Editing: Jill Bilcock
Sound: Livia Ruzic
Art Director: Paddy Reardon
Music: Elisabeth Drake
Casting: Toni Collette, Tsunashima Gotaro, Matthew Dyktynski, Linette Curran, Tanaka Yumiko, Kate Atkinson
Production: Gecko films Production
Distribution:
Pretty Pictures
33 rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine
75011 Paris
France
Tel: 0033 1 43 14 10 00
Mail: [email protected]
Year: 2003
35 mm, Color, 107 min, OV English and Japanese with French subtitles
Un Certain Regard, Cannes 2003
Sandy works for a company specialized in geographical maps. Overloaded with her work she does with passion, she is under an obligation to look after a Japanese potential client during his stay. As soon as they meet, Sandy finds Hiromitsu cold, arrogant, sexist and little voluble. He sees her as a rude, arrogant, charmless woman. While travelling through the Pibara Desert, they reconsider their a priori assumptions.
“We move on top of this earth without stopping to think about what is beneath, or have retrospective insights. Sandy is like all of us, she is absorbed in a hectic pace of life. We rarely draw up an inventory of it, or reappraise it.” Sue Brooks.
“To start with, Sandy and Hiromitsu are enclosed in their own cultural environment and make no effort to go beyond it, to “surpass” it. Yet, this beautiful and frightening landscape allows them to be aware of a larger world, a global world that can make them get closer… Besides, Sandy and Hiromitsu experience a situation exposing differences in terms of culture, history and language, while it also under lines what truly binds them.” Alison Tilson.