Yamagata 2005

At this biennal Japanese event dedicated to documentary, our jury prized the Japanese film The Cheese and the Worms (Chizu to ujimushi) by Haruyo Kato as well as the Turkish short film Keep the Change (Üstü Kalsin) by Ceren Bayar, Dilek Iyigün, Elif Karadenizli, Ozge Kendirci, Savas Ilhan. Details of the prizes

Reports :

Against Removal from the World. Chris Fujiwara comments on our jury's prize winner, Haruyo Kato's moving portrait of her mother in her struggle with terminal cancer.

"Escaping" from History? According to Madhu Eravankara, Keep the Change, which won our jury's prize for best short film at the festival, "powerfully portrays the present status of released political prisoners in Turkey and the shocking aberrations of a society that wants to forget the bitter realities of the past."

The Young Asian Documentarists. Atsuko Saito offers an extended survey of the festival's 26-film New Asian Currents section and draws some tentative conclusions about the state of documentary filmmaking in some of the represented countries.