JAPAN — Academy Awards® accredited Short Shorts Film Festival and Asia (SSFF & ASIA) is collaborating with Japan Cultural Expo on a project about short stories on Japanese folktales.
In the frame of this project, young contemporary writers create short stories inspired by local legends set in various locations around Japan.
This year, the project introduces three exciting short stories set in Okinawa, Hiroshima, and Kumamoto that can be read in English. Moreover, the SSFF & ASIA 2021 Autumn Film Festival hosted a panel discussion with the three writers involved in this project. The video of their talk can be viewed online for free with English subtitles.
The authors: Kumiko Takahashi, Masatomo Tamaru, and Nako Mori talked about the background and the writing and development of the stories, which folktales they based it on. This discussion is now available online with English subtitles.
Participating Authors and Stories’ Synopsis:
Okinawa Pefecture × Kumiko Takahashi “Mom’s Celestial Robe of Feathers”
- Ruri cleans the garage and finds something that was once very important to her mom. Ruri realizes that before she became a mother, her mom had dreams of her own, and Ruri wants to support her in that. The traditional Ryukyu theater piece Mekarushi brings tears to Ruri’s mom’s eyes, and she reaches a big decision.
Hiroshima Prefecture × Masatomo Tamaru “Time Arrows”
- Summoned by their ailing father, three adult children return to their childhood home of Hatsukaichi in Hiroshima Prefecture. When they arrive, their father asks them to go to the island of Innoshima to collect time arrows made by a craftsman there. The three time arrows trigger a profound change in their strained family relations.
Kumamoto Prefecture × Nako Mori “Dancing Girls”
- Second-year high-schooler Himawari doesn’t have any particular dreams or goals but feels pressured to do something other than laze around with her best friend Sumi. To achieve a breakthrough, the pair make up their minds to join that emblem of summer in their home prefecture of Kumamoto, the Omote-yan Open Dance.
