Director: Higashi Yoichi
Screenplay: Higashi Yoichi, Nakajima Takehiro
Cinematographer: Shimizu Yoshio
Sound: Tsurumaki Hiroshi
Music: Catherina Ancient Music Consort
Cast: Matsuyama Keigo et Shogo, Harada Mieko, Nagatsuka Kiozo
Production: Siglo
Distribution:
Les films du Paradoxe
2 bis rue Mertens
BP 10047
92276 BOIS COLOMBES
France
Tel: 0033 1 46 49 33 33
Fax: 0033 1 46 49 32 23
Mail: [email protected]
www.filmsduparadoxe.com
Year: 1995
35 mm, Color, 112 min, OV Japanese with French subtitles
Silver Bear Berlin Film Festival 1996
Two twin brothers, who became famous illustrators for children books, recall their childhood in the Japanese countryside in 1948, soon after the war: their drawing classes, unforgettable games of fishing, bathing in the river and all kinds of stupid things nine-year-old children like to do. They also recall the important encounters they had: a poor little girl, a ghostly boy, strange voices coming from the deep river and three old women perched on a tree.
Higoshi Y. got inspiration from Tashiima Seizo’s book ‘My Village My Paintings’. Landscapes, paths through paddy fields and rivers bring back childhood memories. “When we see a landscape in a scene that no longer exists today, it still exists in our memory… “The village of my Dreams” is for the children who will become adults, and for the adults who earlier were children. The Japanese society hasa tendency to draw a clear distinction between adults and children. I wanted to show how they are intimately connected.” Higashi Yiochi
The childhood countryside is idealized by the nostalgic memory of a Garden of Eden.
