Introduction
Many things were born from “that day”
Our “now” and our “from now on”
What brought Director Ayako Imamura to visit Miyagi after the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake Disaster was the painful thought of “wanting to know more about the condition that Deaf people found themselves in.” It’s been 10 years since then…The enactment of the Sign Language Ordinance is progressing, there is a sign language interpreter at the governor’s press conferences, and there are sign language interpreters in some of the town and village offices and other public places.

All around Japan, in places where there have been various disasters and earthquakes, things that haven’t been seen before are now taking place. For example, there are now disaster shelters where people can use sign language to communicate, where writing and drawings are used to convey information, and where deaf and hard-of-hearing people have volunteered to help in disaster areas.

Film director Ayako Imamura, who in 2013 made the documentary film “The Connecting Bridge: Not hearing 3-11”, is now continuing to document the difficult conditions for deaf people in Miyagi, in Kumamoto after the earthquake, in western Japan after the heavy rains and flooding, and the spread of COVID 19. This is a record of the director Ayako Imamura’s focus on the relationship between deaf people and disasters.
Director / Staff
Director/Filming/Editing ：Ayako Imamura
Message
To tell the truth, I feel some guilt on the release this film.
I have done this filming in order to convey the condition of deaf people in disaster areas ---
And I think that many people have kindly viewed these activities as quite wonderful.
But this has spurred a sense of guilt in me.

During the editing process, another filmmaker pointed out to me,
that as I was filming the people in the disaster areas, I was only viewing them as “victims”.
And that I had forgotten that what a filmmaker should strive for most is to try to understand the people.

When I look again at the films, I see what I hadn’t tried to see before, that is, there really is a “fragment” of the people’s lives, and one after another’s “life” comes shinning through.

It had been nearly ten years since the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake Disaster when I visited Miyagi.
In that time, there were disasters almost year after year, like the Kumamoto Earthquake, the Western Japan Rain Storm, the spread of COVID 19, and deaf people were in the middle of those predicaments.

But, when I went and visited for filming, there was definitely also “hope”. In the middle of these disasters, I think there was also the appearance of people moving forward, and I saw the power of these human beings.

When I was filming deaf people who suffered from the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake disaster, at first I wanted people to know “about” the deaf people there. But now, I want people to “know” the deaf people there.

And I would be happy if we could think together about how we could all have the compassion to understand better what is in other people’s hearts.
Staff
Director・Filming・Editing：Imamura Ayako
Cast：Kato Enao, Kikuchi Tokichi/Nobuko, Koizumi Shoju(President of Miyagi Prefecture Deaf Association ) , Okazaki Saeko(Sign language interpreter)
Editorial cooperation：Okamoto Kazuki／Re-Recording Mixer：Sawada Hiroki
Music Editor：Imai Shinobu／Sound Editor：Noda Kasumi
Illustrator：Ogasawara Madoka／Advertising Design：Nakano Kaori
English Subtitles：William J. Herlofsky

Documentary/116min/2021/DCP・BD/Japanese・English
Trailer