Japanese audiovisual, young and contemporary, is the main feature of the Nippon Connection Film Festival. It took place eight years ago in Frankfurt, Germany, and was responsible for fostering exchanges with the new Japanese cinema and to introduce it to other countries. The curator of Indie 2008 focuses on digital works containing authorial ideas in animation, video-art, documentaries, fiction feature films and shorts.

There are 47 works, of which four are feature films and 45 are shorts, shown in six programs. If the 893239 program belongs to the Yakuza – which is the theme – although each short is different from one another, the beautiful and varied Japanese animations are included in two programs: Open Art Animation and digitist. Allow yourself to be taken.

Japanese underground cinema may be seen in the Immoral Films program, which brings a mild touch of strangeness beyond the atemporality of youths traveling without destination (in the film by Kôji Maeda) or in the nostalgic memory of Kenji Murakami. The JVC Tokyo Video Festival is one of the most important video festivals worldwide, and has bravely survived the end of these types of festivals. An opportunity here to find the best of that event this year.

The four feature films included in the program showcase the many formal possibilities of the Japanese cinema. The film by Yusuke Kaida (Shadow of Sand) shows an interesting fantastic materiality in which the story and the choice for filming in 8 mm add to each other and provide literal darkness to the narrative. Do you think that only your life is difficult? Watch the documentary by Hiroki Iwabuchi and learn that finding a job in Japan can be quite an ordeal for young people. To conclude, there is the Japanese hinterland, which is not that rural (Route 20) and the stormy relationship between two sisters (Lazarus).

More than a great opportunity to watch the current Japanese audiovisual production, it is a rare opportunity to see the Japanese as they see themselves, and to discover a nation of surprising images. (D.A)