No Man's Zone / Mujinchitai
Japan, France / 2011 / 102 min.
Director: FUJIWARA Toshifumi
[Introduction]
"No Man's Zone," the latest work from "We can't Go Home Again" (Berlinale Forum 2006, Premio CinemaAvenire, Pesaro 2006) director FUJIWARA Toshi, is a documentary shot in Fukushima after the nuclear power station accident in March. We see landscape within the "20km zone," now uninhabited after the evacuation of local residents; damages of the earthquake and the tsunami, while the beautiful countryside in spring still remains the same as in past years. Right outside of this No Man's Zone people continue to live. We are told that entry to the 20km zone was eventually prohibited, then the camera heads toward the village of Iitate, where the deadline for evacuation is approaching.... Avoiding journalistic approaches, this sincere documentary attempts to show the realities of Fukushima, through the testimo- nies of people who remain in the disaster-hit areas, and those who have been forced to leave their homes. KATO Takanobu, formerly trained at the Ogawa Productions, handles cinematography; Canadian actress Arsinée KHANJIAN, a regular of Atom EGOYAN's films, provides the voice-overs; and Isabelle INGOLD, a frequent collaborator with Amos GITAI, is the editor. Music is by veteran free-Jazz base player Barre PHILLIPS, also known for his works with Robert KRAMER.
FUJIWARA Toshifumi
Studied film history and film production at Waseda University's School of Literature and the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television. Film critic from 1994. Made his directorial debut in 2002 with "Independence: Around the Film 'Kedma,' a Film by Amos Gitai," a documentary on the making of Amos Gitai's "Kedma." "We Can't Go Home Again," an entirely improvised fiction feature was selected for the Berlin International Film Festival's Forum section. Other works include the documentaries "Cinema is About Documenting Lives: The Works and Times of Noriaki Tsuchimoto" (07) and "Fence" (08).