Multiple layers of fragmented images and gazes
that take us on a never-ending journey.
The film is a new way of communication.
*A video work in which some of the images from “#manazashi” are re-edited into a different version.
From the introduction by Tokyo Documentary Film Festival 2021
About the video work #manazashi ※１
Travelling has always been a fascinating experience, but in today’s world, it has evolved beyond just moving from one place to another. We now share our self-shot and edited images on social media, and virtually explore various “sites” on the internet on a daily basis.
The work #manazashi presents a fresh approach to communication through images. It allows viewers to create their own journey while watching images documenting the journey to Africa and Southeast Asia. The journey is imbued with creativity, urging viewers to actively seek the reflection of the world in it.
The film showcases human activities in Tanzania, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Vietnam, and Japan, which are the research sites of agronomist TANAKA Ueru and cultural anthropologist SHIMIZU Takao, captured from diverse perspectives. The voices of viewers of the recorded footage intermingle, weaving together the complexities of the world in a multilayered way.
The film is not only a record of the researchers’ activities, but also a new journey for the viewers. Adding #manazashi to the images conjures up further possibilities for the film.
#manazashi is a piece of footage documenting a process of trial and error, which is never fully completed. It serves as a site of expression, as if the process of contemplating how to view the fragmentary images is part of the artwork.
This film is a site related to “human life itself,” which does not converge towards a conclusion.
Kenichi Sawazaki
screening
5 March 2022.
Tokyo Documentary Film Festival in OSAKA 2022
@Theater Seven
5F, Osaka Sunpord City, 1-7-27 Jusohonmachi, Yodogawa-ku, Osaka 160-0022, Japan
Organiser : neoneo
13 December 2021
Tokyo Documentary Film Festival 2021, Feature Length Competition
＠K’s cinema
3F, 3-35-13 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0022, Japan
Organiser : neoneo
Director
SAWAZAKI Kenichi
Born in 1978, based in Kyoto/Kochi in Japan. He is a Japanese contemporary artist and a film director, and earned his PhD in Concept and Media Planning, Kyoto City University of Arts. Also, he is the representative director of “Living Montage” which is a platform for the interdisciplinary use of visual media. In Europe, Asia and Africa, he accompanies researchers such as anthropologists and agronomists on their field research, exploring ways of using video and photographic media to create new discoveries in relation to others.
One of his most recent works is the variable video work #manazashi (124 min, 2021, Selected for the Feature Length Competition of the Tokyo Documentary Film Festival), Pero FUKUDA / Kenichi SAWAZAKI / Sangsun BAE Images don‘t or do they? Talk to each other (Tosei Kyoto Gallery, 2021, KYOTOGRAPHIE KG+ Official Program) and the documentary film The Garden in Movement (85min, 2016, Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2016 Premiere Screening) etc.
WEB : https://texsite.net
Cast
TANAKA Ueru
Born in 1960. Professor of Setsunan University(Department of Agri-Food Business) as well as Professor Emeritus of Hue University, Vietnam. PhD (Agriculture), Kyoto University. He specialises in environmental agriculture, soil science and regional development theory. His research seeks to create technologies and livelihoods from indigenous knowledge in Africa and Asia that enable both people’s livelihoods and the conservation of resources and the ecological environment, and to explore new development paradigms that enable ‘both people and nature’. He received the 25th Nikkei Global Environmental Technology Award(2015), the 41st Hitachi Environmental Foundation Award(Minister of the Environment Award, 2014) etc.
SHIMIZU Takao
Born in 1974. Associate professor of Kyoto Seika University(Faculty of Global Culture) as well as Visiting Associate Professor of the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature. Started going to Africa as a university student. He eats all over Africa and Japan, using his rugby-trained stomach as a weapon. He is more of a gourmand than a gourmet. His love of food has led him to write a book, Guidebook as an Swallow up! Burkina Faso! : An Anthropological Guidebook of West African Gastronomy (Airi Shuppan, 2019). He was really specialising in something different, but before long he was treated like a researcher of food culture, and he has somehow started to recognise this.
Credit
| Title | #manazashi ≒ The eyes in the clearing |
| Duration / Release Year | 124min / 2021-22 |
| Location | Burkina Faso, Tanzania, Kenya, Vietnam, Senegal, Japan |
| Directed, photographed, recorded, edited and produced by | Kenichi Sawazaki |
| Production | Living Montage |
| Cast | Ueru Tanaka, Takao Shimizu, Masashi Suda, Hidetoshi Miyazaki, Julien Sawadogo(Tilmnenga) Aboudulaye Ouedraogo, Lamin, Zakaria, Hamidou Sawadogo(Imam), Ahamed(Rastafarian), Baay Fall Ndem Jeremiah Saitabau Tanin, Benedict P. Mapunda, Jacob B. Chadibwa, Oumarou Ouedraogo |
| Commentary | Habaco, mon |
| Photographed by | Ueru Tanaka, Takao Shimizu, Masashi Suda, Lamin, Zakaria |
| Colour Grading | Masae Kariya |
| Acoustic Control | Ryo Okamoto |
| Special Thanks | Satoru Takahashi, Yoshimasa Ishibashi, Tomohisa Sato, Akihiko Inoue, Masato Hase, Melanie Jackson, Johnny Golding Daisuke Mizoguchi, Koki Teshirogi, Benoit Hazard, Christin Adongo, Yoshiko Takagi, Huynh Thi Thuy Tien Kyoto City University of Arts, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Global Environmental Forum, Kazehitotsuchi Gakusha, Centre for Africa-Asia contemporary Culture Center, Setsunan University, Royal College of Art |
| Grants | The Toyota Foundation, Japan Arts Foundation, Nomura Foundation |
Related books, articles and videos
Kenichi Sawazaki “Living Montage: The Margins of the Field Research“
“Toitoutoi Vol.0”
Center for the Promotion of Interdisciplinary Education and Research, Kyoto University, 2021, pp.82-89
Many researchers conduct fieldwork to directly experience life overseas. However, isn’t it in the “margins” that don’t fit into the papers that the “experiences” that renew academia lie? The author, who is active as a filmmaker, discusses his own method of giving a new perspective to the value of the researcher’s experience.
Takao Shimizu, Masahiro Terada, and Seiji Nakao “Guidebook as an Ethnography: On Takao Shimizu’s Swallow up! Burkina Faso!“
The series of ‘Narrative of Terra/Terra Narrates’ inaugurated with Takao Shimizu’s Swallow up! Burkina Faso! : An Anthropological Guidebook of West African Gastronomy in 2018. It is very well received by Japanese intellectual world and many book reviews on it appeared on Japanese major newspapers.
It is a unique book in that it is the first comprehensive book which provides Burkinese/West African cuisine in Japan. Furthermore, seen in the global perspective, it might be the only book which is specialized in such a topic.
If so, what is the significance of this book? Takao Shimizu, the author, Masahiro Terada, the series editor, and Seiji Nakao, anthropologist colleague of Shimizu, talk about the rich implication of the book.
Vanilla cultivation and Processing
6min30sec, 2019
JICA Partnership Program By CSSH-SUA(COLLAGE OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES, SOKOINE UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE), GEF(GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM, TOKYO) AND JICA(JAPAN INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AGENCY)
Video Produced By Living Montage
Filmed and edited by Ueru Tanaka, Masashi Suda, Kenichi Sawazaki