Film materials and documents by Ogawa Productions and Fukuda Katsuhiko
Archives de Narita Airport and Community Historical Museum.
Introduced by Ricardo Matos Cabo, independent programmer; presentation of archives and material by Aikawa Yoichi, researcher (Nagano University).
From 1968 to 1977, the collective of filmmakers Ogawa Productions documented the resistance movement of the farmers and their allies against the destruction of their villages and livelihoods for the construction of a new international airport imposed by the government. This struggle lasted for several decades and was one of Japan’s great social opposition movements, whose echoes are still felt today and resonate with other contemporary struggles for the defence of the land. The members of Ogawa Pro lived in the Sanrizuka area, in the village of Heta, which was at the centre of the conflict. They made seven films about the struggle there and documented many aspects of the village’s life. The audiovisual archive at the Narita Airport and Community Historical Museum, an institution dedicated to the many aspects of this struggle, includes material donated by Ogawa Productions, such as many hours of rushes, negatives and sound recordings produced by the collective over ten years. It also contains an essential photographic archive documenting many aspects of the life of the collective and the struggle in Sanrizuka. The elements donated by Ogawa Pro also consist of a paper archive documenting the history of the collective during this period, including notebooks, detailed records of the exhibition and distribution of the films, and others. Among other audiovisual materials, the collection also holds the work of filmmaker Fukuda Katsuhiko, a former member of Ogawa Pro, who continued to make films in Sanrizuka and publishing and was a crucial figure in preserving these materials. For over 25 years, various people associated with the current museum and its predecessors have collected, catalogued and provided material to preserve the memory of those involved in the struggle.
This presentation follows the retrospective of Ogawa Productions films at Cinéma du réel in 2018, focusing on the archives that preserve the memory of the movement of peasants, students and allies against the construction of Narita International Airport in Japan.
The aim is to publicize this work of archiving and preserving the memory of a long social movement, of resistance and of a territorial struggle of great importance, in which life and struggle came together in a great community alliance of solidarity (also international). The aim is to give visibility to these documents, through screenings, exhibitions and publications.
Photo credit : Ogawa Pro staff shooting in the gusty wind in Sanrizuka / Staff members of Ogawa Productions film a demonstration march by the sons of farmers (Youth Action Corps) who are opposed to the construction of the Narita airport.
© Courtesy of the Narita Airport and Community Historical Museum
Aikawa Yoichi is a professor at the University of Nagano. He was born in Shibayama, where Ogawa Productions produced their Sanrizuka series of films. His main areas of research are contemporary Japanese history and historical sociology. Together with researchers and archivists in various fields, he is organising, preserving and researching the many materials left behind by Ogawa Productions and former Ogawa Productions member Fukuda Katsuhiko, who was one of his research mentors.
Ricardo Matos is a freelance film curator with an interest in non-fiction cinema and the histories of film circulation and exhibition. Among other projects, he has organised retrospectives of the work of post-war Japanese documentary filmmakers Tsuchimoto Noriaki, Haneda Sumiko and Ogawa Productions. Together with Lucía Salas, he has edited the book Peter Nestler – Se acercan otros tiempos (2013). He teaches at the Elías Querejeta Film School in Donostia, Spain.
narita.history@gmail.com
