斜里 Shari

For some reason, there is very little snow in the winter of 2020 on the Shiretoko Peninsula, a special place located in the northernmost part of Japan where rare wild animals coexist with humans. The typical drift ice hasn’t appeared yet, either. Although worried, the inhabitants of the village Shari continue their daily affairs: the shepherd bakes buns, a hunter prepares a dinner with venison, a fisherman picks up trash from the sea and another person observes flying squirrels in her garden.

In these rural surroundings, director Yoshigai Nao, who is also a dancer and choreographer, introduces a mysterious, fiery-red creature, like a walking scarecrow. This turns her delicate, documentary observations into an idyllic, yet disquieting fairytale. Folklore, arts and crafts, oral history, ecology, and mythology blend elegantly in this visual poem. Inside the gym, schoolchildren fight the red creature with all their might, Sumo-style, while outside the bears skip their wintersleep.