I’ve been fascinated and captivated by Yamazaki Hiroshi’s works, both still and moving images, since the first time I discovered them in 2018, at the Image Forum Festival.
Reading about his approach to photography in the catalogue of one of his exhibitions, and finding ‘Ugoku shashin! tomaru eiga!‘(Moving photos! Still movies!), the book where he recounts part of his life and career, made me appreciate his artistic output even more.
Moreover, it a was a revelation to discover (how did I miss it!?) that Yamazaki was behind the time-lapse sequences shot for Magino Village – A Tale / The Sundial Carved with a Thousand Years of Notches (1986) by Ogawa Production, and that he worked as a cameraman in Matsumoto Toshio’s Ātman (1975).
Chute, an experimental film cooperative based in Istanbul and The Hague, offered me the chance to gather my thoughts on Yamazaki, Heliography (1979), and what I’ve called “the solar connection”.
In the article I’ve only scratched the surface of what could, and frankly should, be written about Yamazaki. His engagement with moving images, the relation between his films and his work in photography, his method, and his position in the history of experimental cinema in Japan.
Soon after the article was posted, more thoughts started to coagulate in my head, and I was also told that Matsumoto wrote a piece on some pre-Heliography experimental films by Yamazaki. The journey has just started.
Asian Docs 