A Ballad of Maladies

ArtWatch explores the contentious world of art restoration and demonstrates how original works are often distorted or altered in the process.

After the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, Komori Haruka and Seo Natsumi chose to live and film in Rikuzentakata. This work is a visual record of four people who applied for a workshop Komori and Seo devised, showing them visiting the town and getting to know its people and landscape. The opportunity to hear personal experiences of the disaster decreases with time, but this film provides a bridge to new encounters and communication, in addition to including a story written by Seo entitled "Double Layered Town."

The films follows a man through the post apocalyptic environment of the housing crisis in the Mojave Desert. His job is to rid the pools of foreclosed homes of unwanted pests. On the road through this isolated region, he reflects on alternative ways of living and finds himself in his own solitude. CALIFORNIA CITY is a hybrid film which fluidly crosses the borders between fiction, documentary and essay. The form reflects the narrator's state of mind through feature film elements and an impressionistic use of images, photos and narration.

Set against the backdrop of a town's annual snowmobile race, this cinematic, observational documentary explores the American working class experience.