Known for its multi-ethnicity and diverse natural terrain, Yunnan Province in China prides a unique artistic and cultural heritage. YIDFF 2005 featured a focus on recent flourishing of visual arts here. Screened with English subtitles and Japanese voiceover translation in a special gallery cafe.
The Son Is Not at Home
2004/Dai/15min
Director: He Yuan
Mr. Xie lives in Dawan, a typical Dai village in province of Dehong that is part of a drug-smuggling route from Myanmar. In spring 2002, the authorities sent his son to a drug rehabilitation center in Chuxiong, leaving Mr. Xie and his wife to care for themselves. Although he battles illness, he has no money for hospital treatment. Meanwhile, harvest season approaches, but the sugar cane and corn crops are left untouched in the fields. This film is a potent commentary on the realities of ethnic minorities in contemporary China.
Gebu Sweet Gebu
2005/Tibetan/Color/Video/60min
Director: Zeng Qingxin
The residents of the Tibetan village of Gebu have made their living handling long-distance transportation of goods, using caravans for both work and living. This film explores the caravan’s ages old custom of trade and travel, details the home life of the village, and portrays the hearts of the villagers today.
10.8(Sun) 14:00 @Space NEO
Hani Textile Arts in Jinping
2005/Hani/Color/Video/29min
Director: He Yuan, Wang Qing
The art of Hani embroidery, traditionally passed down through generations of Hani women, is slowly vanishing. The film documents the process of the textile art, while also featuring the Hani women’s thoughts regarding this disappearing art form.
Akha (Hani) New Year: “Gatangpa”
2003/Hani/Color/Video/20min
Directors: Zeng Yiqun, Lu Bing
‘Gatangpa’ is the name of the Hani tribe’s New Year’s festival banned during the Cultural Revolution. This animation by Meilan, himself a young Hani man, attempts to recreate the Gatangpa festival while incorporating indigenous knowledge acquired through interviews with the surviving members of the Hani tribe. Through the use of cartoons—a new media—the film attempts to impart the significance of the tribe’s lost traditions to the next generation.
Foggy Valley
2003/Chinese, Hani/Color/Video/45min
Director: Zhou Yuejun
Recently, a village of the Hani tribe embedded deep within the mountains has seen an upsurge of visitors who come to videotape the area, the villagers doing farm work in traditional ethnic clothing, and the beautiful terraced landscape of rice paddies that surrounds the area. When a television director arrives, the villagers are set on making money out of the ordeal . . .
10.8(Sun) 16:00 @Space NEO
Jade Green Station
2003/Chinese(Yunnan dialect)/Color/Video/122min
Director: Yu Jian
In 1910, France built a railroad that connected its colony of Vietnam and Yunnan. Since then, the anonymous station in Yunnan has endured tumultuous social change, while sharing the weight of time and infinite darkness through the years with the local residents. A cine-poem created by a celebrated poet.
10.9(Mon) 13:00 @Space NEO
Series “A Legend of Kawakarpo”
Mountaineers, Harvest, Food for the Buddha and Flower Valley
2005/Tibetan/Color/Video/180min+a break
Director: Guo Jing
Mt. Kawakarpo is a sacred mountain worshipped by many Tibetans. Fascinated by this place since 1997, the director put aside his scholarly mindset as anthropologist and visited the mountain many times as a pilgrim. He captured on film the daily lives of the local people, the pilgrims and the natural landscape.
10.9(月/祝)15:30 @Space NEO
Yunnan Evening
Food, drink, and music from Yunnan for 2,000 yen per person
10.8(Sun) 18:30 @Space NEO

Presented by Cinamatrix
Co-presented by Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival Organizing Committee, Athenee Francais Cultural Center, The Film School of Tokyo, Polepole Higashinakano

With support from the Agency for Cultural Affairs (Bunkacho)