16th(2014)
HAYAKAWA Chie
An 18-year-old girl, YAMAME, who grew up in an orphanage, came to know that her grandparents are alive. Her grandpa killed her parents 15 years ago and has been on death row. She visited her dementia grandma and met an odd caregiver, TANISHI. He collects sounds to send her grandpa who has been jailed for a long time.
Niagara starts off like a documentary but suddenly the camera remains in a fixed position and the audiences are taken aback by an unusual
incident. This is the point at which the story begins. After that, the camera at times moves with characters that go through emotional turmoil,
and towards the end of the film a new sequence of a documentary with a different style is inserted. Thus, Niagara is a work that freely navigates
between highly realistic and quotidian senses on one hand and dramatic and fantastical senses of the cinema on the other. The film¡¯s two
technical devices, the camera and sound-recording, generate these two senses and incorporate them into the narrative. [HWANG Miyojo]
Synopsis
An 18-year-old girl, YAMAME, who grew up in an orphanage, came to know that her grandparents are alive. Her grandpa killed her parents 15 years ago and has been on death row. She visited her dementia grandma and met an odd caregiver, TANISHI. He collects sounds to send her grandpa who has been jailed for a long time.
Program Note
Niagara starts off like a documentary but suddenly the camera remains in a fixed position and the audiences are taken aback by an unusual
incident. This is the point at which the story begins. After that, the camera at times moves with characters that go through emotional turmoil,
and towards the end of the film a new sequence of a documentary with a different style is inserted. Thus, Niagara is a work that freely navigates
between highly realistic and quotidian senses on one hand and dramatic and fantastical senses of the cinema on the other. The film¡¯s two
technical devices, the camera and sound-recording, generate these two senses and incorporate them into the narrative. [HWANG Miyojo]
HAYAKAWA Chie HAYAKAWA Chie
Born in Tokyo. Studied photography in New York. Her films, What you are holding is not an apple (2000) and Vajra/Vajra (2001), were selected in the International Festival of Cinema and Technology. After 10 years of raising two kids, she went back to a film school and started making films in Tokyo. Niagara is her latest short film which will be showing in several film festivals including the Buffalo Niagara International Film Festival.