JFF Plus Talk: Documentaries from Japan

Livestream Talk with Jesse Cumming & Dr. Darcy Gauthier, Moderated by Joanna Maracle

Join this live online talk between local film experts in CANADA to learn more about documentaries from Japan, in conjunction with three documentaries featured in JFF Plus Online Film Festival;

PEACE, directed by SODA Kazuhiro | 2010   Tora-san in Goto, directed by OURA Masaru | 2016 Tsukiji Wonderland, directed by ENDO Naotaro | 2016

The livestream event that took place on Saturday February 6, 2021 at 8:00 PM (EST) has ended. To watch the recording of the livestream, watch below or click here on the JFT YouTube channel:

JESSE CUMMING
Jesse is a film curator, arts administrator, researcher, and writer. He completed his M.A. in York University and Ryerson University’s joint Communication and Culture program, studying the intersection of moving image technology and public space. He has served as a Consultant and Programming Associate with the Wavelengths section of the Toronto International Film Festival, the Berlinale Forum, and Open City Documentary Festival.

His writing has appeared in Cinema Scope, The Brooklyn Rail, Canadian Art, Prefix Photo, MUBI Notebook, Filmmaker, and more. He presently sits on the steering committee of the Toronto Film & Media Seminar and is a founding collective member of MICE Magazine, a web and print publication dedicated to Moving Image Culture.

Jesse spent 6 weeks in Tokyo and Fukuoka as an Ishibashi Foundation/The Japan Foundation Fellow for Research on Japanese Art. He was one of the first Canadians to receive this honour.

DR. DARCY GAUTHIER
Darcy Gauthier earned his PhD from the Centre for Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto, where he wrote a dissertation exploring the intersection of French and Japanese film, literature, economics, and politics in the 1950s. He was a Japan Foundation Fellow at Sophia (Jōchi) University in Tokyo from 2013–2014.

He has taught a variety of courses at the University of Toronto in the Department of East Asian Studies, most recently on the topic of documentary film in Japan. His current interests are in the connections between postwar documentary film, avant-garde and new wave art movements, and modern Japanese society and politics.

JOANNA MARACLE (moderator)
Joanna is the Cofounder and Creative Director of the Toronto Food Film Fest. The festival enters its third season in 2021 and continues to be a space to celebrate both the diverse cultural landscape of Toronto’s unique passion-driven culinary offerings and a place to support food-centered independent filmmaking.

Joanna has a history of working in film, festivals and non-profit. Using food as a brand of activism, Joanna understands humans’ complicated relationship with food. May it be a basic human right or an expression of culture and love, she offers a unique perspective to the festival and extends her vision into the festival’s programming.