HIRONO
春を告げる町
Directed by SHIMADA Ryuichi
Runtime 130 minutes
North American Premiere
Synopsis
What is true recovery? HIRONO, a new documentary, shows the answer to this question with courage and hope. Hirono Town (in Futaba County, Fukushima Prefecture) was entirely evacuated following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Nine years later, in 2020, the torch relay for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics began in Hirono with the slogan "The Olympics for Reconstruction.” Against the backdrop of this glamorous and symbolic ceremony, HIRONO explores the questions of true reconstruction and recovery by entering the lives of the next generation, people steadily working to rebuild their daily lives.
Producer SHIMADA Ryuichi
Cinematographer SHIMADA Ryuichi
Assistant Director, Sound KUNITOMO Yugo
Editor HATA Takeshi
Sound Design KAWAKAMI Takuya
Music INAMORI Yasutaki
Release Year 2019
Dir. SHIMADA Ryuichi
Born in Tokyo, 1981. Started out in the film industry as an assistant director in “Yamakoshi the Village of Thousand Years History” (directed by Shinichi Hashimoto, 2010.) As a freelance movie director, he has made many industrial PR images. His first feature length documentary film, “Nowhere to Go” was shown all over Japan. With this film, he received the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award in 2012. After that, he worked as producer of the documentary film “Under the Cherry Tree” (16), directed by Kei Tanaka, which was shown in the Japan program of Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in 2015. It also won Nippon Visions Audience Award and the Nippon Visions Jury’s Special Mention in 2016, and 71st Mainichi Film Festival Documentary Award. His second feature length documentary “Hirono”(20) was shown at the DMZ documentary Film Festival and Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival to name a few.
