Housen Cultural Foundation-supported program [Grant for Film Study and Production]
Fools on Fire
よみ芝居
As he wanders a derelict factory in a slum, 70-year-old Yoshifumi Ishibashi encounters ghosts and places from his past as a 15-year-old boy wielding an 8mm camera who was taken into the bosom of an underground theatre troupe in the turbulent era of the 60s. Displaying visual flair, director Diana DAI turns the factory setting into a dreamlike stage that morphs via a visually diverse fusion of elements like gritty documentary, phantasmagoric stop-motion, and the theatrical stage as the film explores memories of marginalised figures fighting for love in immigrant communities and across class lines and the tragedy of their loss of idealism and self-destruction. (Text by Jason Maher)