exclusive program : YIDFF
Gama
(Kaori Oda / 2023 / 53 min / Japan)
A storyteller of peace serves as a guide in the “Gama”—natural caves where many local people lost their lives during the Battle of Okinawa. The woman in blue standing by his side represents the intersection of the present and the past.
On April 1, 1945, US troops invaded Okinawa, sparking a brutal WWII battle. Many civilians hiding in caves were misled into believing they would face American brutality if they surrendered and chose suicide. In caves, Mitsuo Matsunaga narrates their tragic end in a monotone, revealing the underground agony of Okinawa’s inhabitants.
- 2023 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival
- 2023 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam
- 2024 Cinéma du Réel
- 2024 MoMA Doc Fortnight
- 2024 Taiwan International Documentary Festival
- 2024 DMZ International Documentary Film Festival
Kaori Oda
Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1987, Oda Kaori is a filmmaker and artist. Through images and sounds, her works explore memories of human beings. She completed the Doctor of Liberal Arts in Filmmaking under the supervision of Béla Tarr in 2016. Her first feature, Aragane (2015) shot in a Bosnian coal mine, had its world premiere at Yamagata International Film Festival and received Special Mention. The film has been screened at festivals such as Doclisboa, Mar del Plata IFF, Sarajevo FF, TIDF, and more. Her second feature, Toward A Common Tenderness (2017), a poetic film research, had its world premiere at DOK Leipzig. Her latest film, Cenote (2019), shot in underwater caves in Yucatan Mexico, premiered in the Bright Future section at IFFR 2020. She received the Inaugural Nagisa Oshima Prize in 2020 and the New Face Award of the Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in 2021.
