A companion piece to Voices from the Waves: Shinchimachi, this film forms the second installment of Sakai Ko and Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s Tohoku documentary trilogy. Through interviews, the directors focus not on victims but on people and their emotions. One year after the Great East Japan Earthquake in Kesennuma, they listen to survivors reflecting on lingering wounds, the conflicting emotions of survival, and the fragile hope that still remains for the future. 

As though propelled by the possibility of hope they discover among survivors, Hamaguchi Ryusuke and Sakai Ko keep driving. One night, their car reaches the coast of Kesennuma. Located at the northeastern edge of Miyagi Prefecture, Kesennuma is one of the Sanriku coast’s major port cities, a place whose life has long depended on the sea. During the Great East Japan Earthquake, it suffered devastating damage from both the tsunami and massive fires. A companion piece to the Shinchimachi film, Voices from the Waves: Kesennuma listens to survivors one year after the disaster.
In Acting in Front of the Camera, Hamaguchi has written that being filmed is an act already directed toward the gaze of innumerable others in the future. In the latter part of The Sound of Waves, the survivors likewise speak of the importance of passing their memories on to the next generation. In this sense, the Tohoku Trilogy is also the work of archivists recording a present catastrophe in voices for those yet to come. What is preserved is not simply the spectacle of devastation, but testimony: cinema as the telling of lives for future listeners. What can a film do when it was not present at the moment of tragedy? By the time it reaches Kesennuma, the trilogy takes shape as an archive of voices opened toward the future.

• ProducerTAKASHI Serizawa, KUMI Aizawa
• Cinematography SASAKI Yasuyuki, KITAGAWA Yoshio
• Edit SAKAI Ko, HAMAGUCHI Ryusuke, YUSUKE Fukuhara
• Sound HWANG Young Chang

silent voice | Kumi Aizawa | azw@silentvoice.jp