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Underground

Forum 2025
© 2024 trixta
Darkness and light, reflections and projections, gloomy outlines, a shadow taking the shape of a young woman. Kaori Oda’s Underground gently leads us down into the depths of the caves of Okinawa, superimposing past and present, memory and sensual-haptic experience. The film is a creative expansion of Gama (2023), named after a local term for the caves and tunnel systems. Once again full of experimental and visual mastery, in Underground Oda discovers and peels back the subterranean spaces as a place of transgenerational memory of the battle for Okinawa in April 1945. While “peace guide”" Mitsuo Matsunaga soberly recounts the fates of the civilians who sought refuge here from the bombardment by US troops, the “shadow”, embodied by the young woman, glides through the caves, touching rock faces and traces of the past. Silently, with groping fingers. Kaori Oda superimposes memory culture and historical wounds in magical layers of images. The incomprehensible reports of collective suicide are framed by a sensual soundscape. Underground depicts a life with shadows.
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by Kaori Oda (Director, Screenplay)
with Nao Yoshigai, Mitsuo Matsunaga, Mikie Nishihara, Eiga Matsuo, Hayato Nagasaki Japan 2024 Japanese 83' Colour International premiere | Documentary form

With

  • Nao Yoshigai
  • Mitsuo Matsunaga
  • Mikie Nishihara
  • Eiga Matsuo
  • Hayato Nagasaki

Crew

Director Kaori Oda
Screenplay Kaori Oda
Cinematography Yoshiko Takano
Editing Kaori Oda
Music Miyu Hosoi
Sound Design Iwao Yamazaki
Producers Ryohei Tsutsui, Eijun Sugihara

Produced by

trixta

World Sales

Parallax Films

Kaori Oda

Kaori Oda, born in Osaka, Japan in 1987, is a filmmaker and artist. In 2016, she completed a Doctor of Liberal Arts in filmmaking in Sarajevo, supervised by Béla Tarr. Aragane (2015), shot in a Bosnian coal mine, premiered at Yamagata International Film Festival. Toward a Common Tenderness (2017) had its world premiere at DOK Leipzig and TS’ONOT / Cenote (2019), shot in underwater caves in Yucatán, premiered in Rotterdam. GAMA (2023) screened at MoMA Doc Fortnight and Cinéma du Réel. Oda received the Nagisa Oshima Prize in 2020 and the New Face Award of the Japanese Education Minister in 2021.

Filmography

2010 Thus a Noise Speaks 2014 Ko Oh; short film 2015 Aragane 2017 Toward a Common Tenderness 2019 TS’ONOT / Cenote 2023 GAMA 2024 Underground

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2025