Sophia Symposium "Exploring a Japanese Fishing Village through Art" Part One
A screening of a documentary film

Produced, Directed and Written by John Williams
 Co-Producer and Co-Director: Yu Iwasaki
2024/86 min./Japan/Bilingual version (Japanese dialogue with English subtitles, English narration with Japanese subtitles)

 North Cormorant Island was filmed over ten years (between 2014 and 2024) in the remote fishing village of Kitaushima (which means North Cormorant Island), on Sado Island, Japan. Until the 1960's the village was only accessible by boat, but a couple of hundred people lived there, rice-farming, fishing and raising cattle. After a road was built, young people began to drift to the cities and now there are less than thirty residents, most of them over seventy years old. The film blends observational documentary, following the everyday life of the village, the rituals, customs and work of the people who live there with a personal, poetic reflection on the director's childhood in his father's village in Wales. It is a film about time, place, mortality and human relationships with the land and the sea.

The film was awarded the Audience Award at Tokyo Documentary Film Festival, 2024.

 This event is part one of the Sophia Symposium 2025 "Exploring a Japanese Fishing Village through Art" organized by John Williams and the ICC Collaborative Research Unit with the JSPS Scientific Research (C) 24K03565 Art, Environment and Sustainable Futures.

PDF: 487f91_262caf8dde9e44b789c1a86c0f7decaa.pdf

BLOG: A screening of a documentary film "Kitaushima" (North Cormorant Island)

Symposium Part two: November 15th / 18:30 to 19:30 (Doors Open at 18:00)
Performance of a Play "The Blue Tanuki Dreams of a Two-Moon Night." (In Japanese with English text explanation.)

Symposium Part three: November 16th / 10:00 to 18:40
Symposium with guest speakers reflecting on similar projects in villages in Brazil, Norway and the UK.