Yoyogi

Max Golomidov / Estonia, Belarus, Japan / 2022 / World Premiere / 73 min.

synopsis

Yoyogi is a park located in the center of Tokyo and the setting as well as the main character of this documentary. However, it is not the director’s intention to present the history of the park – apart from the opening title, the audience will not learn any facts about it. The documentary without voiceover captures the park and its visitors only with a static camera and soft editing. Children playing on a monument, a couple on a bench hugging under an umbrella, young men competing in a rap battle, a homeless man passed by somebody, a girl making a TikTok video, a group of black men singing a song in a foreign language. A meditative observation.

“This film combines two strange and seemingly overlapping peculiarities. On the one hand, there is a distant, almost scientific in its dryness, observation of ordinary scenes of people’s life in the park, on the other hand, a feeling of some kind of magic and the impossibility of what is happening.”

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Source: https://allfilm.ee/work/yoyogi-haiku/

biography

The director and cinematographer of the film is Estonian Max Golomidov, for whom Yoyogi is his directorial debut. Golomidov graduated from the Baltic Film and Media School at Tallinn University. As a cinematographer, he has collaborated on Sipelgapesa (2015) and The Racecourse (2020). He is currently working in Japan as a film colorist.