Shinya Isobe

13

A small twinkling dot slowly glides across the black screen. It is followed by another, and then a third. We seem at first to be watching an abstract piece of video art, but there is more to the Japanese film 13 than meets the eye. Filmmaker Shinya Isobe left his camera in exactly the same spot for five years to shoot a picture of the sunset every thirteen seconds. In a series of merged time-lapses, we see the sun moving serenely from left to right. Over and over again. First in a neat line, in total silence. Later patterns appear, supported by a minimalist soundtrack. No digital trickery was used to create the hypnotic images that pass by. Isobe overlaid analogue shots from different seasons to produce clusters of shining spots. See it as an amalgamation of time, a contemplation of humanity versus the cosmos—it’s up to you to create your own associations. (Source: IDFA 2020)

For Rest

The film captures the dishes on a table in a forest over a long period of time. The audience’s imagination is stimulated as time passes and the scenery. An eloquent story is told as meaning emerges from the subject. A drama is born out of the contrast between- and the death of- man and nature.

EDEN

Matsuo Mine is a large abandoned complex in Hachimantai city, Iwate prefecture. I felt it possesses two conflicting natures- those of impermanence and eternity. Instead of the concrete “past” I tried to look for abstract “memories” through the viewfinder and resurrect them as a narrative.

dance

The film centers on a woman and her room. I tried to visualise the memories and the time accumulated in the room. The dancing figure that was captured using long exposures is an entity between the existential and imaginary.