Underground
The final piece of a trilogy exploring the memories and sounds of subterranean spaces, Oda Kaori’s haunting docudrama follows a mysterious figure stalking the borderlands between darkness and light. This poetic study of landscapes finds its anchoring deep in the Okinawan gama caves where stories of life emerge from layers of ancient rock – blooming in the shadows of unspeakable human horror.
Programmer’s Note
Following Aragane (2015) filmed in a Bosnian coal mine and Cenote (2019) filmed in sinkholes in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico, Underground is an aurally rich ode to a tragic episode of human loss in the Okinawan gamas, tracing the ability of matter to contain memory. Not as concluded past, but as living memory endlessly transmuting across subterranean and domestic places, film projections and shadows, human bones and coral fossils. Memory is further transformed by the mysterious presence of artist and dancer Nao Yoshigai and the cave guide Mitsuo Matsunaga. He narrates the forced mass suicides of Okinawan civilians who took refuge there in 1945, following the invasion of American troops. Oda places this grief in compassionate adjacency to moments of astonishing beauty – silhouettes at the mouth of a tunnel, a glistening spider web, whispers addressed to a tree, and luminous seascapes.
~ Ilinca Vânău
Director Biography
Kaori Oda (B. Osaka, 1987) is an artists and filmmaker whose works explore the memories of human beings.
She lived in Sarajevo for three years from 2013 and completed the Doctor of Liberal Arts in filmmaking under the supervision of Bela Tarr in 2016. Her first feature, Aragane (2015) shot in a Bosnian coal mine, had its World Premiere at Yamagata International Film Festival and received Special Mention. Her second feature, Toward A Common Tenderness (2017) a poetic film research, had its World Premiere at DOK Leipzig and TS’ONOT/Cenote (2019) shot in underwater caves in Yucatan Mex-ico, was premiered in Bright Future section at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020. Her latest middle length film GAMA(2023) have been screened at MoMA Docfortnight, Cinéma du Réel and Festival du ciné-ma de Brive(Jury SFCC de la Critique). She received the Inaugural Nagisa Oshima Prize in 2020 and the new face award of Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in 2021.
Director Filmography
Lighthouse (2024), GAMA (2023), Homo Mobilitas (2022), Karaoke Cafe BOSA (2022), Night Train (2021), Water Scape (2021), OUR CINEMAS (2020), Cenote (2019), Night Cruise (2019), Wind Church (2019), TUNE (2018), Toward A Common Tenderness (2017), Cine nouveau 20th Anniversary Project (2017), TEN (2017), Theory of Colours: prologue (2017), Aragane (2015), FLASH (2015), Ko Oh (2014), The Thread of Red Cocoons (2012), Thus A Noise Speaks (2010)