Waking up the village.

The Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, a biennial project started in 1989 as a means of mura okoshi ("waking up the village") to revitalize the Japanese city of Yamagata, has evolved into a first-rate international film festival. In the four years since its inception, the biennial has expanded and now screens well over 400 films.

Each year the festival organizers select films from around the world, with a particular emphasis on Asian cinema. This year there were four programs: the "Main Competition"; "New Asian Currents"; "7 Spectres - Transfigurations in Electronic Shadows," a tribute to the 100th anniversary of film; and "Japanese Documentaries of the 1970s." Concurrent screenings occurred daily from 10am-11pm.

One of the deciding factors to host a film festival in Yamagata was the relative high concentration of movie theaters, six of which are within a few minutes walking distance from each other. For film fanatics, many of whom also attended the Tokyo International Film Festival in September, it was a veritable feast and a rare opportunity to view films not often screened in Japan. Additionally, the small-town atmosphere of Yamagata, slower paced than the impersonal hustle and bustle of Tokyo, made it easier to mingle with filmmakers and other visitors.

Although male filmmakers dominated the festival, women swept most of the major competition prizes in both the Main Competition and New Asian Currents. In the former program, Tsipi Reibenbach's Choice and Destiny (1993), a contemplative examination of her parents' Holocaust experience through their stories and contemporary daily actions, took the Grand Prize (also known as the Robert and Frances Flaherty Prize). Heddy Honigmann's Metal and Melancholy (1993), a series of sometimes humorous and other times painful backseat conversations with Peruvian cabdrivers, captured the Mayor's Prize. Judges favored the down-to-earth, candid approach that both films exhibited over 13 other films that included the popular, theatrically-released American documentaries Hoop Dreams (1993, by Steve James) and Crumb (1994, by Terry Zwigoff).

Other lauded films included Barbara and Winfried Junge's Screenplay: The Times (1993), an ongoing epic, a la Michael Apted's 7 Up series, that follows the development of a group of East German schoolchildren and the technology that recorded them over the years, and Peter Mettler's Picture of Light (1994) that captures on film the elusive Aurora Borealis or "Northern Lights." Both films received runner-up prizes. Anand Patwardhan, who connects machismo to religious fundamentalism as a possible motive for the continuing violence between Muslim and Hindi groups in India, received a Special Prize for Father, Son and Holy War (1994).

Probably the heart of the festival and what makes it unique among documentary festivals is the New Asian Currents program organized by Ogawa Shinsuke for the first festival in 1989. Shinsuke, who helped initiate the festival itself, dedicated much of his life to encouraging fellow Asian filmmakers. Although he died in 1992, his legacy lives on in this program.

This year's programming in New Asian Currents was eclectic: films from 18 countries ranged from full-length features to 10-minute shorts, from Hi-8 video to 16mm film, from informal, gritty, journal entry videos (Sokly "Don Bonus" Ny and Spencer Nakasako's a.k.a. Don Bonus [1995]), to highly constructed documentary-fiction hybrids (Chen Yiwen's Scenes of Violence [1994]). For those in search of a quintessential expression of "Asian Cinema," however, it was certainly not represented in the program - if anything, the program only reinforced the notion that Asian sensibilities are as diverse as the cultures and languages the region encompasses. Still, a number of common themes such as cross-culturalism, 'modernization, violence, self-determination and family and displacement could be found among the films, and this despite the various ways such ideas were conveyed. Because most of the makers were present to talk about their work, the smaller screenings provided a forum for identifying and discussing many of the ideas that were addressed by this group of mostly younger, emerging filmmakers.

A more formal opportunity for networking and debate was attempted at the Komian Club, the nightly gathering spot of festival-goers. Unfortunately, because of the large number of participants and the time necessary to translate between languages, Only generalized discussions of the common, perennial problems of censorship, funding and oppression were possible.

In keeping with the eclectic character of this program, Byun Young-joo's Murmuring (1995), exploring the painful stories of Korean comfort women who were forced to become sex workers for the Japanese military, received the Ogawa Shinsuke Prize, and Kawase Naomi's Katatsumori (1994), an endearing 8mm "home movie" devoted to her grandmother, an Award for Excellence. Scenes of Violence also received an Award for Excellence. Other personal favorites were Luis Thadeus Ermitano's refreshingly humorous Retrochronological Transfer of Information (1994) and Jill Misquitta's The Clap Trap (1993), documenting the plight of Bombay "junior artists" (extras) in the Indian film industry.

As part of "Japanese Documentaries of the 1970s," all seven of Shinsuke's Sanrizuka films, which document the struggles of farmers to prevent the construction and development of the Narita International Airport , were screened in one long day. Tsuchimoto Noriaki's films about the Minamata mercury poisoning were shown in another marathon screening. The program included films by other prominent Japanese documentarians such as veteran woman filmmaker Haneda Sumiko, who screened The Cherry Tree with Grey Blossoms (1977), and Hara Kazuo, best known for A Naked Emperor's Army Marches On (1985), who screened Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 (1974).

The program "7 Spectres - Transfigurations in Electronic Shadows" took an unexpected approach to commemorating the 100th anniversary of film. Under the headings of "7 Spectres" - "Nuts and Bolts," "War," "the Documentary Smile," "The Home Movie," "Danger and Documentary," "Circle of Looks" and "Beginnings" - over 50 films from around the world and from different decades were gathered. Classics such as Alain Resnais's Night and Fog (1955) and Luis Bunuel's Land Without Bread (1933) were screened side by side with George Holiday's Rodney King videotape (1992), Sadie Benning's Jollies (1992) and The Home Movies of Edvard Munch (1927).

Not to be overlooked were the films of Artavazd Pelechian, the Armenian filmmaker. In a special invitation screening, seven of his dialogue-less shorts, made between 1967 and 1992, were screened. The obvious joy and care with which he assembled these films, and his celebrations of life, were a pleasant reprieve from many of the dark, other-worldly, socially-conscious films at the festival.

It is difficult to sum up such a multifarious program. Aside from the lack of any representation by Africans, the festival was internationally diverse, with a multitude of languages and countries represented. Also in attendance was a man shooting 8mm film to document the event in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of film. Perhaps the most fitting image to leave the reader with would be that of this young, Japanese film fanatic documenting the event, pestering the likes of the competition judge Hou Hsiao-hsien and filmmakers Pelechian and Sumiko to answer a multitude of questions.

ANN KANEKO is a filmmaker and writer based in Los Angeles and Tokyo who is currently working on a film about undocumented workers in Japan.