The Tale of Iya

Tetsuichiro Tsuta : 2013
Iya monogatari – oku no hito

The story begins with a man finding a baby in the snow by a freezing mountain lake. Moving forward to the present day, the baby has grown into a caring woman who is now looking after the elderly gentleman who discovered her. It was summer when a stranger from Tokyo arrived at Iya, Japan's last untouched region. This young man, Kudo, was seeking a new, self-sufficient life. Kudo then met an elderly man and his granddaughter, Haruna, living there in the heart of the mountains. Their primitive and secluded lifestyle fostered a certain emotion within him. He was exhausted by city life and believed this beautiful land would give him some rest. On the contrary, the reality was not as easy as he thought. A tunnel to be built in Iya threatens to disrupt the natural order. The town can no longer rely on agriculture to sustain the community and as a result many of the local population have left for the city. They've been replaced by a group of construction workers building the tunnel and a group of foreigners, conservationists, protesting the defacing of the Japanese countryside. A dream-like visual poem about the nobility of co-existing with nature and the changing face of modern Japan. Tetsuichiro Tsuta's epic feature received a Special Mention when it premiered at Tokyo International Film Festival 2013.