Oyster Factory

In the organizer's words:

牡蠣工場 Kaki kôba

Director: SÔDA Kazuhiro
2015, 145 minutes, OmeU, Blu-ray

This documentary uses the example of a small town to show the impact of global changes on daily life in a modern society. Due to the 2011 disaster, Watanabe can no longer find work at home and takes over an oyster factory in the remote town of Ushimado. Opening the shells is traditionally a job for the local population, but there is a shortage of young people, so foreign workers are hired on a temporary basis.

Sôda comments on its website: "The changes and challenges faced by the characters in this movie are mirrored throughout Japanese society and in many other developed countries in the 21st century. I believe that what I experienced in the oyster factories can be seen as a miniature of the larger world."

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 that 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.

The screening takes place in cooperation with Filmpalette Köln and Fugu-Filmverleih Berlin.
Tickets can be purchased at the Filmpalette.

Price information:

Admission free