Nippon-koku Ogata-mura

Stefanie Gaus, D 2021, 110 min, Japanese Original with English Subtitles

It seems quiet in Ogata-mura, only farm machinery breaks the silence. In the 1960s, the Japanese government launched a land reclamation and nutrition program for what was then the country’s second largest lake. Over the course of many years, people were settled, given land and accommodation. The film mainly shows the facades in the village – the houses often only vary in the color of the roof, depending on the phase of the program in which they were built. The voices of the residents provide insight, explaining why they or their parents came here, what experiences they made and how the realities of women differed from those of men. ›Nippon-koku Ogata-mura‹ traces how the actual project and lived reality diverged from each other: “What was once planned by the government as a ‘peasant model village’ later became the scene of what some called the ‘secret revolution of the peasants’” (Stefanie Gaus). (sp)