Issue:
September 2024
Join the Film Committee
Join us on Thursday, September 12 at 6 pm for a sneak preview of acclaimed documentary filmmaker Kazuhiro Soda’s new work, The Cats of Gokogu Shrine. After taking audiences behind the scenes of election campaigns (Campaign, Campaign 2), mental institutions (Mental, Zero), experimental theaters (Theatre 1, 2), seafood processing plants (Oyster Factory), even America’s largest football stadium (The Big House), Soda now turns the lens on his adopted home, Ushimado, and the adoptees who provide both pleasure and pain to the island’s human residents: the dozens of street cats who make an ancient Shinto shrine their haven. As ever, Soda’s plain-spoken approach plumbs hidden depths, exploring themes confronting modern society everywhere, particularly the loss of local traditions and the fracturing of tight-knit communities. With gentle humor and sudden insight, The Cats of Gokogu Shrine paints a visual portrait of a vanishing way of life, illuminating the “beautiful and harsh, simple yet complex” universe of Gokogu, a small fishing village located on the Seto Inland Sea. In this microcosm, the fraying relationship between humans and nature, as well as the symbiotic relationship between people and cats, is brought into stark relief. The director will be present for a post-screening Q&A session. (The Cats of Gokogu Shrine, Japan/USA 2024, 119 minutes, Japanese with English subtitles).
Karen Severns is chair of the FCCJ Film Committee
