SHARI (2021)

Welcome to Shari: a small town, located on the easternmost part of Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido, in the Shiretoko Peninsula where the Sea of Okhotsk meets Russian shores. Here, we meet hunters and bakers who love venison a few ways; expert flying squirrel enthusiasts and a collector known for his “Hall of Hidden Treasures”. At the heart of it all is the conspicuous absence of drift ice and fish in this crucial winter season. Meanwhile, the Red Thing, a yeti sanguine “like a throbbing blood clot” rampages through the scenery where folklore blossoms from man and nature converging – the latter now skipping a beat.

Nao Yoshigai (whose spectacular short films have charmed festival audiences across the world, including at Cannes’ Director’s Fortnight with Grand Bouquet) makes her feature debut with Shari, a remarkable experimental documentary bringing the viewers to one of Japan’s most secluded and magnificent areas. Like Yoshigai’s short works – which straddles the line between documentary, dance film, and fantasy – Shari is multifaceted: part introspective travelogue, part exploration of myth and legend, part climate change diary and artful in situ intervention. It offers a unique viewpoint into a place and people rarely captured on film and advocates for the future of Japan’s far-flung areas, uncertain in a warming world.