Horizon Features

Personal documentary from director Kana Tomoko, who has covered environmental issues and people suffering misfortune in films like Beautiful Islands. This film documents the pregnancy she discovered immediately after the March 11, 2011 earthquake and follows her experiences until the baby's birth. In the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Kana was 4 kilometers from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant documenting the people who were forced to evacuate because of the nuclear power plant accident. Then, she discovers that she is pregnant. Her first pregnancy at the age of forty takes her by surprise, and she worries about the impact of radiation on her unborn child.

KORE-EDA Hirokazu, who won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is a friend of mine for 20 years. In one summer, my camera followed him in three seaside towns from Cannes, Okinawa and Chigasaki. His film was embraced by many people and the creation for the next story quietly begins with the sound of soft sea breeze.

Documentary that delivers a true portrait of picture book illustrator Iwasaki Chihiro, who passed away in 1974 at age 55. Three years of shooting reveal the little-known life of this illustrator, renowned for her pictures in Kuryanagi Tetsuko's "Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window" and beloved by many even after her death. Executive produced by Yamada Yoji. War, work, and illness toyed with her fate throughout her tumultuous life. What were the life-long convictions that Chihiro held as an artist?

This movie (Executive Producer - KORE-EDA Hirokaz) looks at three beautiful islands, shaken by climate change: Tuvalu in the South Pacific, Venice in Italy, and Shishmaref in Alaska. The islands all have different climates and cultures, but the people all love their native lands. The film, which took three years to shoot, focuses on their daily lives. It portrays festivals that foster ties among the people, traditional crafts which have been passed on for generations, and peaceful lives by the water. They are all disappearing by climate change. When these people lose their homelands, their cultures and histories face death. Their lives in the midst of all the changes suggest where our future leads.