River - RIBA, NAGARENAIDE YO

Pitch

A new day dawns at the Fujiya inn, nestled in the heart of the Japanese mountains. A day like any other… or almost : for one after the other, the employees and the hotel visitors realise that the same two minutes of time keep being repeated to infinity… Some want to leave, while others prefer to stay, but everyone is trying to understand what is happening to them. “‘Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes’, my first film, was almost an exercise in style : it relied on high technical precision where every second counted. It was a daring formal proposition, one that we alone could achieve. With ‘River’, I wanted to adopt a more emotional approach. I used the same two-minute repetitive structure, but this time with the aim of exploring its effect on people’s daily lives and emotions… The repeat is no longer timed to the nearest second, it’s freer, almost fluctuating. The heart of the story is focused more on human lives and failings than on the time concept itself.” Yamaguchi Junta