These are ten documentaries you shouldn’t miss at the 17th Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (Japan) which will take place online from October 7th – 14th, 2021.

IMPORTANT: Films are available only for people in Japan. Films are only available during the screening time up to 1 hour after the ending of the film. (if the movie is schedule for 2pm and it last 1:30 hs the film will be available from 2pm up to 4:30 pm, after that hour the film will not be available).

– Recommended Documentaries –

The landscape of a town in Seoul emerges on the screen—the riverside, a street, a clothing store, a barbershop, a playground, a temple, an alley, a schoolyard—as a woman with a camera appears in the frame, taking pictures. (YIDFF 2021)

Screening Dates:
October 10th, 2021 | Sunday | 12:30 pm
October 11th, 2021 | Monday | 14:00 pm

Wiseman continues his observation of all the corners of American society. This time, he points his camera at the various activities of Boston City Hall, from their Thanksgiving Day events to recognizing same-sex marriages, reflecting on not just the ideals of democracy but also how it works in practice. A challenge to the idea of a fragmented American society (YIDFF 2021).

Screening Date:
October 12th, 2021 | Tuesday | 18:30 pm

Trailer:

There are 10 people who face the camera and talk about their memories rooted in the soil of Tottori prefecture. The memories of their lives, from the pre-war era to the present day, mesh together to form the film.

Screening Dates:
October 9th, 2021 | Saturday | 16:30 pm

Hong Kong, shaken by the “one country, two systems” policy. November 2019, protestors calling for democratic reform are besieged in a university by heavily armed officers. In scrupulous detail, these anonymous filmmakers capture the worn out and anxious youth who are being beat into submission by the violent and cunning forces of power (YIDFF 2021).

Screening Dates:
October 10th, 2021 | Sunday | 14:30 pm
October 11th, 2021 | Monday | 13:30 pm

Trailer:

Life in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. The situation in the country worsens, with roads blocked and food so scarce that people start dying not only from bombardment but starvation as well. No end in sight, all they can do is put one foot in front of the next (YIDFF 2021).

Screening Date:
October 10th, 2021 | Sunday | 20:00 pm

Trailer:

Raped when she was a student, the director’s case against her rapist came up against the wall of the Chilean judicial system. Now, when she tries to re-open it as an adult, she finds the statute of limitations has been reached. Filming in the “night shot” setting of her camera, she composes her unnamable feelings into a kind of diary, setting off on a journey without any clear exit. At the destination, we bear witness with her to what she suffered (YIDFF 2021).

Screening Dates:
October 8th, 2021 | Friday | 21:30 pm
October 12th, 2021 | Tuesday | 16:30 pm

Trailer:

Tormented by images of nuclear war since his childhood, the director tours nuclear test facilities across America with his family. The film re-examines recurring violence, nuclear and human history, overlapped with memories of the massacre of Native Americans (YIDFF 2021).

Screening Dates:
October 8th, 2021 | Friday | 14:30 pm
October 9th, 2021 | Saturday | 12:30 pm

Teaser:

The town of Ofunato, three times prey to tsunami. Its women give the town voice, as poet Arai Takako, listens closely to capture their words. Japanese tanka (a form of classical poetry) and poems in the Kesen dialect ring out with powerful and manifold resonance (YIDFF 2021).

Screening Dates:
October 9th, 2021 | Saturday | 10:00 am
October 12th, 2021 | Tuesday | 18:00 pm

An island off the pacific coast of Mexico. There is no one in sight, but we find traces of a bustling past. Interwoven into the soundscape and amorphous space of what remains, the past and future cross paths and we as spectators are invited to join on a journey beyond time (YIDFF 2021).

Screening Dates:
October 10th, 2021 | Sunday | 10:00 am
October 12th, 2021 | Tuesday | 22:30 pm

Based on interviews with foreign nationals detained for long periods of time at the immigration center in Ushiku city, Ibaraki prefecture, this film reveals the violation of human rights by the authorities. This is work of watchdog journalism that sounds the alarm about state power run amok.

Screening Dates:
October 9th, 2021 | Saturday | 14:00 pm

Trailer:

For more information please visit: http://yidff.jp