Campaign

In the organizer's words:

選挙 Senkyo

Director: SÔDA Kazuhiro
2007, 120 minutes, OmeU, Blu-ray

Under the strict gaze of the Liberal Democratic Party, the politically inexperienced Yamauchi Kazuhiko runs for a seat in the Kawasaki parliament. His university friend Sôda Kazuhiro accompanies the election campaign with his camera.

Yamauchi's spontaneous, inadequately prepared election campaign is a tour de force. He sets up with posters, megaphone and sash in front of supermarkets, in residential streets and on station forecourts to convince potential voters of his program. Even more serious are the pressure exerted by the party and the financial burden, which also calls his private existence into question. Shot according to the Direct Cinema method, the film does not argue politically, but takes its time for observations and looks deep into the inner workings of Japanese politics.

Source: Berlinale 2007

Film series
The Japanese documentary filmmaker Sôda Kazuhiro - The Power of Observation

Sôda Kazuhiro was born in 1970 in Ashikaga, Tochigi Prefecture. He studied religious studies at the University of Tokyo and film at the School of Visual Arts in New York. His "Observational Method of Documentary Film" is based on his own "Ten Commandments". Using this method, he has made eleven feature-length documentaries, which have been shown at festivals around the world and won awards. The films are produced by his wife Kashiwagi Kiyoko. He is also the author of nine books, of which Why I Make Documentaries has been translated into English, Korean and Chinese.

As a filmmaker, he has received the Peabody Award and is also the recipient of the Marek Nowicki Award from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights for his life's work.

His filmography and an overview of his publications can be found on his homepage https://www.kazuhirosoda.com.

To mark the German premiere of his latest work,Gokôgû no neko (The Cats of the Gokogu Shrine, 2024; Fugu Filmverleih Berlin), Sôda Kazuhiro is coming to Germany to present the film in person in Cologne, Düsseldorf and Berlin. The Japanese Cultural Institute will also be showing three earlier documentaries dealing with the topics of political elections(Senkyo, 2007), mental illness(Seishin, 2008) and temporary work(Kaki kôba, 2015).

Film preview at the Filmpalette Cologne

Thursday, November 21, 2024 | 8 pm
The cats from the Gokogu shrine
五香宮の猫 Gokôgû no neko
2024, 119 minutes, original German, DCP

Admission: 6 €

In the presence of director Sôda Kazuhiro, with Q&A after the screening.

Price information:

Admission free