These are ten documentaries you shouldn’t miss at the Yamagata international Documentary Film Festival which will take place from October 5 – 12, 2023 in Yamagata, Japan.

Above and Below the Ground by Emily Hong – Myanmar, USA, Thailand | 2023 – 84 minutes
The film follows two women activists who continue to oppose the construction of the Myitsone Dam in Northern Myanmar’s Kachin State depicting their solidarity with a like-minded young woman and musicians on a riverside journey from the past to the future. (YIDFF 2023)

Eastern Front by Vitaly Mansky, Yevhen Titarenko – Latvia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, USA | 2023 – 98 minutes
The film paints a stark picture of the Russian invasion of Ukraine since February 2022, following six months with members of a medical battalion at the front as they go through gruesome experiences and enjoy brief respite with family during leave. (YIDFF 2023)

Trailer:

Flickering Lights by Anupama Srinivasan, Anirban Dutta – India | 2023 – 90 minutes
Electricity finally comes to a village of the Naga people on the Myanmar border, where the dream of sovereignty lives on. After all the laborious construction work, how will the light that illuminates the houses change the everyday life and the people of the village? (YIDFF 2023)

Trailer:

Night Walk by Sohn Koo-yong – Korea | 2023 – 65 minutes
Let the murmurs of the river call you for a midnight stroll. The calm blue meandering mountainous landscape, doodle-like drawings, and old poems dialogue with each other in silence. At times lonely, the night is also brimming with excitement. (YIDFF 2023)

Trailer:

Nowhere Near by Miko Revereza – Philippines | 2023 – 96 minutes
Policies enacted during the Obama administration were supposed to put an end to an “undocumented immigrant” status. The director heads from Los Angeles to the Philippines, and then beyond, to trace the details of how this began. (YIDFF 2023)

Trailer:

Parallel World by Hsiao Mei-ling – Taiwan | 2022 – 177 minutes
A mother has spent 12 years raising her daughter with Asperger’s syndrome, learning to accept her frank ways of expressing herself and observing her daughter’s progress toward creativity and independence. The film chronicles the relationship between mother and daughter, who at times closely embrace and other times are pulled apart, barely saved from parting. (YIDFF 2023)

Saving a Dragonfly by Hong Da-ye – Korea | 2022 – 80 minutes
The director, a high school senior, begins to film herself and her friends as they face off with college entrance exams. The film is a sincere and moving portrayal of these candid moments, captured over the course of eight years the girls spend together that are filled with emotion and apprehension. (YIDFF 2023)

Self-Portrait: 47 KM 2020 by Zhang Mengqi – China | 2023 – 190 minutes
This is the newest addition to the film series shot in the homeland of the director’s father; a village called “47KM” in a mountainous region of China. In 2020, despite the onset of the COVID pandemic, farmwork continues across four seasons as it does each year. (YIDFF 2023)

The Unstable Object II by Daniel Eisenberg – USA | 2022 – 204 minutes
The manufacturing procedure at a prosthetic limb factory in Germany, a high-end leather glove workshop in southern France, and a denim jeans factory in Turkey… Each is the subject of this experimental observational film. (YIDFF 2023)

Trailer:

Trip to Lost Days by Shen Ruilan – China, Singapore | 2022 – 73 minutes
A man who decides to become a monk after quitting his job as a train attendant boards a train… The film invites us on a journey into this mysterious dream world, exploring the intertwining memories of the man and his co-passengers. (YIDFF 2023)

For more information, please visit: https://www.yidff.jp