SODA Kazuhiro

想田和弘

Biography

Biography

Born in Tochigi,1970, lives and works in New York

Kazuhiro Soda is a Peabody Award winning filmmaker. He practices an observational method of documentary filmmaking based on his own "Ten Commandments" which prohibits him from doing pre-shoot research or writing a synopsis before filming. He imposes these rules on himself in order to minimize preconceptions and to be able to make unexpected discoveries while filming and editing. His debut feature documentary “Campaign”(2007) was invited to many prestigious festivals and was aired in nearly 200 countries and territories around the world. It won the Peabody Award in the U.S. “Mental” (2008) won the Best Documentary Award at the Busan International Film Festival and the Dubai International Film Festival and others. Soda's latest film "Zero" (20) won the Prizes of the Ecumenical Jury at Berlinale in 2020.

Footnote

Zero portrays the story of how an aged medical doctor lives his days after retirement as the camera carefully reveals his subtle breathing and feelings. Dr. Yamamoto Masatomo, who had continuously encouraged his patients struggling with diseases for a long time and putting his respect for them into words, lends an awareness leading to rethinking not only about the practice of mental care, but also about human relationships in our contemporary society. The idea as such is imbued in the title Zero. With a decade having passed since the director SODA Kazuhiro directed a previous work, Mental, which was shot at the same doctor's clinic called "Koraru Okayama," in Zero, the director also focuses on the doctor's relationship to his wife who is suffering from dementia. While depicting the problems in the lives of an elderly couple and in a male-dominant society, the film reveals the subtle emotional exchange between two people in the scenes of a grave visit and a conversation at a friend's house, offering complex narratives. Avoiding being judgmental with specific standards, the director faces others straightforwardly and openly as much as possible. To Soda, who has advocated "observational films," which he explains are an extremely close observation of incidents that lie in front of him, and who has created several works based on this idea, Dr. Yamamoto's "zero" appears to have special significance.