ARTICLE FILMS
TRACE OF BREATH
Jury Award at
KINOTAYO 12e festival du cinéma japonais contemporain
The film follows the owner of a seed and sapling business in Rikuzentakata, Iwate
Prefecture, as he writes his thoughts and observations of the 2011 disaster down in
English, of which he's been a diligent student for years. It's a film that could not
have been made without the close relationship forged between the director, who
moved from Tokyo to Rikuzentakata after the massive earthquake and tsunami,
and her subject, who speaks calmly with no reserve.
Profile
KOMORI Haruka
Born in 1989 in Shizuoka Prefecture. M.A. in Intermedia Art at Tokyo Universityof the Arts(2015). After the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011, she moved toRikuzentakata, one of the tsunami affected area in Tohoku region, and had beendocumenting the lives of local people with her friend and artistic partner SEONatsumi, a writer and a painter. In 2015 they moved to Sendai-city and establishedan aggregate corporation NOOK to maintain recording and documenting activitiesin Tohoku region. "Trace of Breath" is her first feature film.Filmography2012 the place named (short film)2012 Aida-no-kotoba (short film)2017 Trace of Breath (feature documentary film)Installation works (under the name of "Komori Haruka + Seo Natsumi")2012 A Story of K -something sad in the scene-2014 under the wave, on the ground2015 Atarashii-Jimen/Chitei-no-uta-wo-kiku (A New Ground/Listen to the Songof the Earth)2016 Tooi-hi|Yama-no-shusen (Distant Fires, The Mountain at the End of theWar)