Sundance Film Festival (*1)  is held every January in snowy mountains in US. The festival’s focus is independent films under the mission to listen to those who don’t have a voice and to deliver it to the world. I have been to Sundance for four consecutive years including 2017 and the year became a special one by one short film And So We Put Goldfish in the Pool (Goldfish) (*2)  directed by Nagahisa from Japan.

During Sundance Film Festival 2017, inauguration of President Trump was held. Filmmakers showed here and there their sense of responsibility to protest new president’s directions regarding immigrant, healthcare, LGBT rights, race and religious discrimination and so on. During the Q&A sessions before and after screening, many directors and actors showed their anger toward new president and it made audience to consume energy mentally.

Under such circumstance, Goldfish won Short Film Grand Jury Prize. The story is based on a true event and pictures four junior high school girls in Saitama prefecture in Japan end up breaking into swimming pool of their school at one night of summer break. Goldfish was shown at the last of one short programs which consists of 6 shorts. Before Goldfish there were mixed genres of films as fiction and documentary and comedy and serious ones. Then during Goldfish, I felt audience most focused to the story because of the laughter. The film made audience laugh and then audience focus more not to miss next. At the end, there was a big handclap. After the screening, Nagahisa, the director, was continuously talked by audience.

Goldfish is about a junior high school girl feeling ennui by being normal. Her ennui was the same with the people in the US who were feeling left behind from the arise of activities towards race, gender and other social issues. Those normal people are also the ones who don’t have a voice. Through the winning of Goldfish, I see the deep and wide commitment of Sundance to listen to a variety of voices not only disastrous ones of the time. In addition, I deepened my love towards cinema to see that the root of emotions is universal and that is why cinema is needed around the world.

Nagahisa came back to Sundance in 2019 with his first feature length film We Are Little Zombies (*3)  and won again two years after his first win. This film continued to win at film festivals around the world and in June it will be on theaters in Japan. I respect Nagahisa’s power to sease the opportunity given to him in 2017 at Sundance and continue to evolve. I hope he will continue his creation by being ture to himself.

Goldfish led me to the universe of shorts. Until the previous year, I did not check any shorts at Sundance because I was busy enough to go through more than 100 features. The reason why I found Goldfish in shorts is because every year I try to see films from Japan to see my home country from outside but in 2017 there was no feature from Japan. Then I accidentally thought that there may be one in shorts. By reading the synopsis of Goldfish, I decide to get the ticket because I was curious why this story about a norma junior high school girl, not the typical subject from Japan spotlighted in the world such as gender discrimination, tradition or pop culture. As a result I was lucky to present at the very first world premier of the Grand Jury Prize short.

Since then, I actively watch shorts program in other film festival. The filmmakers of shorts are often available to talk after the screening, so I have experienced to grow friendship at the festival. In this regard, too, I appreciate Goldfish to expand my experiences at film festivals.

Through Goldfish, I thought of Japan from outside. The next moonbow cinema event was planned in spring. I decided to show a Japanese film for the first time. (To be continued.)