An interview with the Director of The Stream Xlll, screening at the 2024 Mosaic World Film Festival.
In “The Stream XIII”, the 13th in the series, I focused on how the landscape is transformed when the wind as a weather phenomenon streams through the fields and reed fields cultivated by humans. I used the wind chime to perceive the invisible presence of wind as sound. And also, we can perceive the invisible presence of wind as visualized wind ripples in the fields.
1. What drew you to create this film?
Uji City where the film was shot, is a unique place of the vast paddy fields in Kyoto prefecture.
Because about 80 years ago, the land was drained from a former lake and a vast low-lying area was artificially created as reclaimed land.
Holland is famous for its reclaimed land. As Bruegel, Gogh, and others have painted outstanding landscapes on reclaimed land, there is a unique time-space that stimulates the human senses.
First, this vast lowland of paddy fields is maintained by humans for the production of food, but there are very few people there.
There is a very strange silence. I feel sensitive to the sound of the wind.
The second is the vast paddy fields that cycle through the four seasons, changing dramatically.
I am inspired to make films because I am stimulated by the imagination of continuously changing and flowing landscapes with the sound of wind.
2. What does filmmaking mean to you?
I create my own visual language.
I try to communicate with others in that language.
3. What advice would you give students or beginners that want to make films?
Our values and common sense are constantly changing day by day.
Therefore, we need updated visual expressions different from the past.
It is the role of the student to create new images.
4. What films do you watch again and again?
“Man with a Movie Camera”,(1929), dir: Dziga Vertov
“Heaven Is Still Far Away”, (2016), dir: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Thank you Sakurai!
You can get tickets for the #2024mwff here: https://filmfreeway.com/MosaicWorldFilmFestival/tickets