Welcome to "While the Right Hand is Sleeping"
1999 "The Sight Behind The Bandaged Eye"
"Discipline For The Left-Handed"
2000 "The Beast"
2001 "Zipper＆Tits"
And 2002
 "While The Right Hand is Sleeping", a Shirakawa Koji's brand-new comprehensive compilation, inspires Japanese independent film scene.
2002/DV/color/208min/Japan
 Directed by shirakawa koji
Presented by Aichi Arts Center
Here games & saves & desires coiled & recoiled.
On the cureless world, spilling man's soul to tears.

A painter; portraits his family with the decayed right hand
A counselor; out of control
A child; mind-listening, no speaking
The gays; sex, strategy, & love crazed
A woman in deaf-and-dumb; and-ripreading
A bum; a gene adherent

Now they're in the utter depth of Hell.
Is there a "miracle" in the Hell?
Is there a salvation?Are they saved?
This film may be a bad dream for you.
When you get awake, Shall this nightmare ceases,
and changes into a sword to survive,
and leads how you should be,
Or continues just as a dream is.
STORY
The story starts when a painter Sin gets affected with incurable disease and his right hand stops moving. His wife, Kei's profession is a counselor, but she, herself, is losing her emotion. Their only child, Kou, reads people's mind and as a result, shuts his heart and stops talking. Sin loses parts of his body little by little, and this changes the relationship of the family. Emotion awakens in Kei. Kou pushes thumbtacks in his own body. One day, to the collapsing family, comes Sora, a gay caretaker. Easy-going Sora changes the family relationship once again. But while each family member pursues the way out, many tragedies occur triggered by jealousy, war of nerves, and betrayal. Passing up the people who leave the story, Sin tries to complete the painting which portrays a family. And here is Kou, the only one who realizes the existence of "being" who has been looking at the family from above...
Director's Coment
By this film, what I wanted to portray the most was the communication between people. I intended to depict comically the people who hurt one another in the first half, and then in the second half, tried to hammer out transience of human world by introducing God-like being (someone actually appears in the film) who looks down on people. I like the idea - "absence of God" which many writers have taken up so far. Majority of people may simply see this film as "unrelieved tragedy", but indeed, our existence is no more than that. The character in the film may be feeling the same-transience of human life. And all of them want to be saved by someone and wait for someone to come. This is why people spy on each other and war of nerves occurs. In the film, the characters who lose the war of nerves get caught up with tragedies and disappear from the story. The film ends with the "moment" - whether salvation comes or not to the remaining characters. It is a long film, but what I want the audience to feel the most is this "moment". (Shirakawa Koji)
Director's Profile
Born in 1967 in Miyazaki prefecture. Decides to be a visual artist at the age of 27, quit his job and joined class of 20th of Image Forum Institute of Moving Image,and continued one more year with a scholarship. As a graduation work, "The Sight Behind The Bandaged Eye"(1997)　and "Discipline For The Left-Handed"(1999), he challenged the limit of 8mm films. These two films were shown and were well received at the Vancouver International Film Festival in 1999 and International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2000 as one program. His other work includes "The Beast"（2000）and "Zipper＆Tits"（2001）。All his previous films have been highly evaluated and some were invited to the international film festivals. Shirakawa is one of the young and the most promising visual artists representing Japan.
INTRODUCTION
AAC(Aichi Arts Center) Original films is an access program of experimental films that set their theme on "body", which has recently been of high interest to not only the fields of art, but also of philosophy and psychology.　Since its foundation, AAC has produced 1 film every year continuously. The center is drawing keen attention for offering a unique program as well as producing high quality films.

Previous films were all highly motivated work which opened up whole range of possibilities of visual art. And they were well received not only in Japan but also in overseas such as being shown in international film festivals . Especially, "Twilights"(1994) by Amano Tengai , and "BODY DROP ASPHALT"(2000) by Wada Junko which was created in 1999 won awards at international festivals.

 "3 + 1" (1997) directed by Oki Hiroyuki and "Die Kunst der Fuge" by Ishida Takashi(2001) have departed from thetheme of the human body and expanded their dimensions to a genre-mixing art style.

In the year of 2001, as the 11th production, young and promising visual artist, Shirakawa Koji was selected as a director. He has a record of exhibiting his films at Vancouver International Film Festival and International Film Festival Rotterdam . His early work of 8mm films such as "The Sight Behind The Bandaged Eye"(1997) and "Discipline For The Left-Handed"(1999) started with the theme of "body" obsession as it was strongly reflected to his work.

In his first digital film "The Beast"(2000), he incorporated a stage play in the visual and experimented metafiction. This quality was succeeded by "Zipper＆Tits"(2001) which juxtaposed and contrasted two stories. Shirakawa's interest as a story writer started with personal obsession and moved on to, while succeeding the obsession, human relationships. These qualities are embraced and elaborated. And in this new film, Shirakawa's interest focuses on human society, i.e. family, couple, etc. In the film, the people are related with complexity and the novel-like drama tries to pursue the human relationship. This film shows another new aspect of Shirakawa.
INFORMATION
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