Look at me, I look at you, Koji Inoué deaf photographer

by Brigitte Lemaine

Japan, France

Director: Brigitte Lemaine

Cinematographer: Vincent Bataillon

Editor: Lisa Pfeiffer

Music: Rika Suzuki

Cast: Levent Beskardes

Production:
GREC
14 rue Alexandre Parodi
75010 Paris
Frane
Teel: 0033 1.44.89.99.99
Fax: 0033 1.44.89.99.94

Year: 1996

Betacam SP, B & W, 19 min
OV with French Subtitles

Unreleased

Awarded in worldwide Film Festivals

Koji Inoué was born in 1918 and expired in 1993. When he is 3 years old, he becomes deaf in a accident. He is a photographer at a young age but loses all his negatives in a bombing. He later stops working as a cabinetmaker in order to open a photo shop and creates a photo club for deaf people in the fifties that turn out to become quite important. Thanks to his son who gets involved as an art director, his photographic work is exhibited in Japan and in France towards the end of his life.
The film, where at times the actor uses the language for deaf people, reveals his life, work and favourite themes. Could his glance as a deaf photographer be similar to any other photographer’s ? What does it reveal about the sensitivity of a deaf man, about his position in the Japanese post- war society? We look at him as he looked at his contemporaries, a witness of visual expression.