Mountain Plain Mountain
2018 | Co-directed with Yu Araki | 21 minutes | 1.78:1 | Colour | Stereo | DCP | Japanese spoken | Spain, Japan, Netherlands
Synopsis
Mountain Plain Mountain was shot in Obihiro, Japan, at the last standing venue to host a rare kind of draft horse races known as Ban'ei. Putting together a mix of motionless, contemplative shots and hard-edge, rhythmical, gibberish-rich montages, the slowness of these bizarre races is turned inside out. The track's topography, poetically described by a veteran trainer as "a small mountain, a plain, and a big mountain," is what informs the overall timeline of the film.
Credits
a film by Daniel Jacoby & Yu Araki
with: Yoshiyuki Hattori, Kurando Funayama, Tetsuya Sato
music: Liisa Hirsch
vocals: Matsuritaro
color grade: Ludovic Roussaux at Okay Studio
audio mix: Takashi Kataoka
camera, sound, edit: Yu Araki, Daniel Jacoby
commissioned by: Fundació Joan Miró
with the support of: Arts Council Tokyo, Mondriaan Fund
additional support: Jan van Eyck Academie
special thanks: Serafín Álvarez, Kaoru Chiba, Hitoshi Furudate, Ryuji Goda, Mitsushige Hayashi, Takeshi Inomata, Maki Ishida, Tomoyuki Ishida, Shinobu Ito, Takuma Kajiwara, King, Yuka Kokubo, Tamara Kuselman, Hideki Matsumoto, Jamie Mccubbin, Milky, Martina Millà, Stuart Munro, Kota Nagasawa, Yasuo Nambo, Marjolein van der Loo, Mami Odai, Yusuke Ohki, Ayumi Ohmuku, Nobuo Ono, Gerard Ortín, Kiri Takahashi, Mitsuhiro Takasaka, Yuki, Keiko & Mine Takano, Kenta Tanabe, Chikashi Tazawa, Hiromichi Terashima, Naoko Tokuda, Chiaki Sakaguchi, Takashi Serizawa, Kuniya Suzuki, Wolfgang Winter, Shoji Yoneyama, Takayoshi Yoshida, and our families
shot at: Ban’ei Tokachi, Obihiro, Japan, 2017
Screenings
- 01/2018 International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam NL ★
- 02/2018 Yebisu Intl. Festival for Art & Alternative Visions, Tokyo JP
- 03/2018 International Film Festival of Uruguay, Montevideo UY
- 04/2018 Go Short International Short Film Festival, Nijmegen NL
- 04/2018 Les Rencontres Internationales, Paris FR
- 04/2018 EMAF European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück DE
- 05/2018 Jeonju Intl. Film Festival, Jeonju KR
- 05/2018 Oberhausen Kurzfilmtage, Oberhausen DE
- 05/2018 Videoex, Zurich CH ★
- 06/2018 Lima Independiente, Lima PE
- 06/2018 Internationales Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, Hamburg DE
- 06/2018 Filmadrid, Madrid ES ★
- 07/2018 EXIS Festival, Seoul KR
- 08/2018 NEMAF Seoul International New Media Festival, Seoul KR
- 09/2018 BISFF Beijing Intl. Short Film Festival, Beijing CN
- 09/2018 MIEFF Moscow Intl. Experimental Film Festival, Moscow RU
- 09/2018 Curtocircuito, Santiago de Compostela ES ★
- 10/2018 Bosphorus Film Festival, Istanbul TR
- 10/2018 Uppsala International Short Film Festival, Uppsala SE
- 11/2018 L'Alternativa CCCB, Barcelona ES
- 11/2018 Kasseler Dokfest, Kassel DE
- 06/2019 Sheffield DocFest, Sheffield UK
- 11/2022 e-flux Screening Room, New York US
Awards
01/2018 Ammodo Tiger Short Film Award @ IFFR, Rotterdam NL
05/2018 International Competition Winner @ Videoex, Zurich CH
06/2018 Special Mention Vanguardias Competition @ Filmadrid, Madrid ES
09/2018 Camira Jury Special Mention @ Curtocircuito, Santiago de Compostela ES
Press
De realiteit in scène gezet, Tubelight #107 (in Dutch)