The Lake

director: Shin'ichi Miyakawa

original title: Mizuumi wa Hito wo Nomikomu

country: Japan

year: 2013

running time: 43 min.

synopsis

A hand with a camera emerges from a lake. This surreal scene is like a period in the personal correspondence between two Japanese filmmakers. In the director’s mind, the faded 8mm footage depicts artifacts that evoke phantoms of the past. But besides aimless wanderings through the streets of his hometown, a collection of photographs of a women’s wrestling team, or the handmade mask of Mexican superhero El Santa, the camera also shows its own image. In this experimental correspondence written with a camera instead of a pen, the central theme is one of mirrors and reflections representing the connection between subject and object, life and film.

DETAIL:
“Now 8mm film is going out of existence. I waste valuable film stock by shooting long takes. I shoot long because a bird will fly across the frame. Isn’t this just a way I live my life?”

biography

Shin’ichi Miyakaw (1970) is a Japanese artist. He has made films such as Hodekeru (1998), I am the one to decide your 1 second (2001), and Don’t Look Back (2005). His film Lake (2013) won the Grand Prize at the Image Forum Festival.

more about film

director:	Shin'ichi Miyakawa
cast:	Shin'ichi Miyakawa, Yoshiko Miyakawa
producer:	Shin'ichi Miyakawa
photography:	Motoshi Fujinami

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