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Finding a Position on the Global Map of Film Festivals: The Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival

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Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 1

Part of the book series: Framing Film Festivals ((FFF))

Abstract

YIDFF (Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival) was born from the aftermath of 1960s and 1970s Japanese political documentary film movement when documentary filmmaker Shinsuke Ogawa settled in Yamagata Prefecture to make documentaries on local rural communities. In 1989 these led to the establishment of a bi-annual international documentary film festival, which in its programming has kept close ties to both the socially conscious documentary film practice and the Yamagata region. The festival has, along the years, proved to be instrumental in educating Asian documentary filmmakers, in working as a gathering spot for both Japanese and Asian documentary community and in raising discussion on documentary practice as well as during this decade in supporting the northeastern region of post-2011 triple disaster in Japan. This chapter looks at YIDFF’s history and the ways in which it is consciously cinephiliac, non-commercial in its practices and its importance in the festival network.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I have been a frequent visitor to YIDFF since early 1990s, from the festival’s second edition in 1991. With an ardent interest in both the rhetorical form of documentary films and the documentary form’s participation into political debate, I have followed the development of YIDFF.

  2. 2.

    Film critic, film historian, festival programmer and filmmaker Peter von Bagh passed away in September 2014. He was an internationally well known, central figure in Finnish cinephilia scene, as well as in programming and leadership of Midnight Sun Film Festival. It is interesting that the festival’s first post-von Bagh issue of 2015 drew even a larger crowd of participants than ever since the start of the festival.

  3. 3.

    Fujioka, Asako/Niskanen, Eija. Email exchange. 10.06.2012.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Eija Niskanen

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  1. Eija Niskanen
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Spain

    Aida Vallejo

  2. ReImagining Value Action Lab Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada

    Ezra Winton

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Niskanen, E. (2020). Finding a Position on the Global Map of Film Festivals: The Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. In: Vallejo, A., Winton, E. (eds) Documentary Film Festivals Vol. 1. Framing Film Festivals. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17320-3_10

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