The former players of the Japanese women’s volleyball team used to be known as the ‘Witches of the Orient’ because of their seemingly supernatural powers on the courts. From the formation of the squad in the late 1950s as a worker’s team at a textile factory, right up until their triumph at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, their memories and stern discipline are evoked through modern-day sequences, archival footage, and cartoon images where fact and fable fly hand in hand. “[I saw] a 16mm reel of a volleyball film produced in 1964 by the Japanese Olympic Committee […] These images resembled a Japanese cartoon, the famous Attacker You! manga cult of a whole generation. I thus discovered that behind all the volleyball manga and anime there is a long lineage that goes back precisely to the ‘Witches of the Orient’, the nickname given by the Soviet press to this Japanese team.”
(Julien Faraut)
Julien Faraut (France 1978) earned a master’s degree in History from the University of Paris-Nanterre. He works at the French Sports Institute (INSEP), where he is in charge of the 16 mm film collection. He has taken advantage of this archive to make his own films (such as Tableaux noir écran lumineux, Un Regard neuf sur Olympia 52, and John McEnroe: In The Realm of Perfection, PFF 2018 Best Film), in which he typically connects the topics of sport, cinema and art. Director will be present.
UFO PRODUCTION PRESENTS
A FILM WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Julien FARAUT
STARRING Kinuko IDOGAWA (TANIDA), Yoshiko KANDA (MATSUMURA), Yoko TAMURA (SHINOZAKI), Katsumi CHIBA (MATSUMURA), Yuriko NAKAJIMA (HANDA), Kayako KIHARA, Ryo KIHARA, Chikako HIOKI, Hina HIOKI, Yuina HIOKI.
IMAGE: Yutaka YAMAZAKI
SOUND OPERATORAND SOUND MIX: Léon ROUSSEAU
THE INDISPENSABLE PERSON: Catherine CADOU
MUSIC SCORE: Jason LYTLE, K-RAW
EDITING: Andreï BOGDANOV
PRODUCTED BY William JEHANNIN
ALL SCREENINGS ARE FREE WITH RESERVATION
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