Presented by Asian Film Archive
Double Bill: Kaori Oda
Event Description
This screening will be followed by a post-screening discussion with filmmaker Kaori Oda
Underground (2024) screens with the following short film:
Recording with Mother ‘Working Hands’ (2025)
Synopsis
Blurring the boundaries between subject and filmmaker, director Kaori Oda observes and listens as her mother recounts and retraces fragments of her life through conversation, gesture, and song. Moving between memory and the present as she goes about her daily routine, the film unfolds into a collaborative portrait.
Synopsis
Underground (2024)
Emerging from the darkness underground, a shadow takes the form of a woman (played by filmmaker and dancer Nao Yoshigai) and journeys across sites marked by memory and loss, notably the Okinawan caves (gama), where many died during World War II. Moving through the caves, tunnels, and submerged landscapes, she encounters traces of the past, from the voices of the dead to rituals of remembrance.
Through a striking interplay of sound, darkness, and fleeting light, Underground blurs the boundaries between documentary and the imagined, visually and sonically investigating memory, history, and trauma across these and other sites in Japan.
