MAELSTROM

Overcoming Artistic — and Bigger — Challenges

Venue(s): K's Cinema
December 12 (Mon), December 17 (Sat), 2022
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Official website: tdff-neoneo.com/lineup/lineup-2944/
Theater website: tdff-neoneo.com/lineup/
Theater website: tdff-neoneo.com/access/
Theater website: tdff-neoneo.com/access/?id=ticket-area
Tariff: ¥1,500 per screening
Advance tickets: At the theater website in three days advance of the screening: ¥1,500
Talk event: The director will appear after the screenings.

Title: マエルストロム (Maelstrom)
Director: Mizuko Yamaoka (山岡瑞子)

Now in its fifth year, the Tokyo Documentary Film Festival continues to highlight a range of Japanese/international documentaries across several competitive categories, from shorts to features to ethnographic works, with special screenings and filmmaker discussions. This year there will be a focus on butoh and on films from Papua New Guinea. The program also features a deeply humanist story about overcoming a devastating loss and rediscovering self-worth: Mizuko Yamaoka’s Maelstrom. It’s screening with English subtitles and is highly recommended.

The winner of the 2022 Japan Documentary Film Award, given biannually by the University of Pittsburgh's Japan Council and the Screenshot: Asia film festival, Yamaoka’s film details her early struggles to find artistic and personal freedom while attending the Pratt Institute in New York, before a drastic life change occurs when a car accident damages her cervical vertebrae. Confined to a wheelchair and forced to rely on others, Yamaoka feels her future in the art world slipping from her grasp.

Eventually, she sets up a camera and begins documenting her life, often overcome by the “maelstrom” of her day-to-day existence, but also eager to find her place in the world.

Yamaoka’s intimate documentary is sometimes difficult to watch as she traces her arduous journey, but her belief in the healing power of art and her indomitable spirit shine through.

December 12, 2022 (Mon) 11:45 AM
December 17, 2022 (Sat) 11:45 AM

K’s Cinema