GOLDEN LEOPARD - FILMMAKER OF THE PRESENT AT LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL 2012

Inori is a picturesque and isolated mountain village in Japan, where only a few elderly residents remain, along with the ghosts of those who left town long ago. The documentary of the same name was the product of a chance meeting between Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase and Mexican director Pedro González-Rubio. While Kawase’s melancholy odes to the family were already well known among international audiences, many discovered González-Rubio only after the release of his last film, the sublime Alamar, which was shot in a remote fishing village. Their shared sensibilities led Kawase to invite him to Inori to capture its residents’ stories. González-Rubio knows how to sit back and let his subjects simply reveal themselves. Through his curious and empathetic outsider’s gaze, each villager becomes a fascinating character that is never alien and always extraordinary. Inori’s elderly residents offer us moving testimonies of their everyday lives, along with a few whimsical moments. Winner of the Filmmakers of the Present award at this year’s Locarno International Film Festival, the meditative and dreamlike Inori is a film that takes us far away, only to remind us of our own stories here at home.

Presented in collaboration with RIDM