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The Tides that Bind: Cinema At Sea Okinawa Pan-Pacific International Film Festival 2025
Satoru YOSHIKAWA in Enlightenment In a panel on Pacific Islander filmmaking organized by the Hawai’i International Film Festival last year, a Native Hawaiian producer noted that fellow creatives in the region were “not divided by land, but connected by water”—a thought at the heart of the new Cinema At Sea Okinawa Pan-Pacific International Film Festival in Naha. The southernmost and westernmost region of Japan, made up of multiple islands geographically closer to Taipei than Tokyo, Okinawa may be best known historically as the site of several bloody battles during WWII, or colloquially as the “Hawaii of Japan,” a sun-kissed vacation dreamland of azure waves and tropical beauty. But, like Hawai’i, there’s a far deeper history and more complicated reality within the dream. A once-mighty independent kingdom and indigenous culture that linked ancient Japanese, Chinese and Southeast Asian kingdoms together in trade, now at once part of and apart from Japan, yet still living amidst American military bases, Okinawa has a rich (and tragic) history that’s inspired countless films. As a site for an ambitious new festival hoping to forge links across the East and South China Seas, and across the indigenous cultures of the Pacific, it’s certainly an intriguing one.
With curators from mainland Japan, Taiwan and Okinawa, the festival was anchored by works from those three regions, with the strongest titles drawing upon their inter-connected histories, as well as films from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Hawai’i, the Cook Islands and New Zealand. Spotlights provided a chance for audiences to experience works from such less-heralded filmmaking regions as New Caledonia (in the “Islands in Focus” sidebar) or featured up-and-coming filmmakers, such as Māori director Mike Jonathan, whose historical action epic Ka Whawhai Tonu – Struggle without End provided a key anchor to the festival.
While several festivals are now focusing on indigenous (and specifically indigenous Pasifika) films, such as Hawai’i or MāoriLand, Cinema At Sea offers a unique chance to see those works juxtaposed against another side of the Pacific, and to experience the films and filmmakers in dialogue. “In the past, Okinawa was called ‘the gateway to Asia’ during the Ryukyu Dynasty,” shares Japanese actor Shogen, who was born and raised in Okinawa and served as a festival ambassador. “It has a long history of interacting with countries in Asia and the Pacific ocean.” And indeed, by festival’s end, it wasn’t uncommon to see a Cook Islands filmmaker deep in conversation with a New Zealand actor or Indonesian producer, or a Hawaiian director praising their indigenous Taiwanese and Okinawan counterparts, in scenes that brought to life the organizers’ hopes of the festival—and Okinawa—uniting regions.
Created by artist Yuki Yamada, the festival’s visual art tied into this theme. Yamada’s work explores the boundaries between humans and nature, and the poster art and key motifs, titled Awai/Awahi [Between], was designed to align with this year’s festival theme, “Border/less.” “We are entering an era where the borders that were once necessary for ‘dividing’ can evolve into Awai (a space in-between),” said Yamada. “Observing how plants and animals move freely as if borders never existed, and learning from the boundless curiosity of children, I am reminded every day of the endless possibilities we can embrace.”
Some of the festival’s major titles were closer to home, born out of the shared histories and tragedies of Okinawa, Taiwan and Japan. Opening the festival was Sean Hao Hsiang Hu’s documentary Ocean Elegy: The Tragedies of Mudan and Ryukyu, which focuses on the still-controversial Mudan Incident of 1870, where several shipwrecked Ryukyuan (Okinawan) voyagers were killed in Taiwan by Paiwanese indigenous villagers; the incident became a pretext for Japan’s invasion of Taiwan in 1874, as well as Japan’s later annexation of Okinawa. Merging archival materials, interviews with historians and descendants and well-shot narrative re-enactments, the piece stirred emotions at its world premiere. A later panel discussion with the director, activists and historians highlighted the festival’s abilities to contextualize the films. “When I was 15 years old, history textbooks told me that this incident affected the fate of Taiwan, but no teacher could clearly describe what happened,” noted Hu. “I hope that this film will be reflected in people’s hearts like a crystal-clear river.”
Also tackling history, nationalism and colonialism, Lau Kek-Huat’s ambitious From Island to Island chronicles the secret histories of Taiwanese soldiers conscripted into the Japanese Army during WWII. Annexed in 1895, Taiwan was Japan’s first colony and “test case” for expansionist hopes across Asia, which became fully activated during WWII. At once victims and perpetrators of Japanese colonization, Taiwanese soldiers were often considered second-class citizens compared to Japanese soldiers, yet still took part in many of the same massacres that the Japanese Army inflicted across Asia, whether in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, or Thailand. Those years and deeds, have rarely been discussed or mentioned in the decades that have passed. Nearly five hours long, woven from striking archival footage and interviews with elderly survivors who are observers, victims, perpetrators or all three), every interview and scene in From Island to Island seems to open up a different way of looking at the past. “As an intermediary who immigrated from Malaysia to Taiwan, it gives me the courage to make this film,” states Lau. “I do not deny that personally there is anger and incomprehension towards the 70 years of silence in Taiwanese society; in Malaysia, we live with constant reminders from our elders to remember the cruelty that has happened to us. I believe that humanity can be shaped; unless we accumulate maturity in our thinking through these intergenerational dialogues, we will continue to be mediocre. This is the beginning of my personal resistance, my refusal to become a mediocre person.”
Winner of Best Documentary at the 2024 Taipei Golden Horse Awards and Best Film and Best Documentary at the 2024 Taipei Film Awards, From Island to Island won Cinema At Sea’s Jury Award and Audience Award. The screening this writer attended was notable for nearly every audience member staying throughout the duration of the film, and taking part in a lengthy, moving dialogue with the director afterwards. For the jury, the film was “an emotional historical documentary that weaves multiple layers of story. It reminds us all of our humanity and the importance of learning from our past.” In a recorded video message delivered during the festival’s Closing Night, the director shared a moving story on conducting interviews in Okinawa with similar survivors of and witnesses to Japanese acts during the war. “I have shared these stories with you,” he recalled one elderly survivor telling him afterwards. “I am old and will be gone soon, but now that I have shared them, they live with you, and it is your turn to share, so that they are never forgotten.”
The links between Taiwan, Japan and Okinawa were further underlined in an evening retrospective screening of legendary film collective NDU’s radical 1971 documentary essay, Asia Is One. Born out of the anti-military student protests that swept Japan in the late 1960s, NDU (Nihon Documentarist Union) were a group of Waseda University students who considered themselves activists first, filmmakers second. Contemporaries of the more well-known Shinsuke Ogawa and his Ogawa Productions, NDU were seen as the black-sheep wing of the leftist documentary film scene, eschewing hierarchies and command in favor of a more anonymous way of filmmaking made by non-professionals to better reflect the lives of everyday people. “Everybody can push a button and shoot with a 16mm camera,” they noted. Beginning in Tokyo, the group later relocated to Okinawa, where their revelatory Motoshinkakarannu (1971) profiled life on the margins of Okinawan and Japanese society, in a realm of sex workers, American Army bases, dingy apartments and even visiting Black Panthers. Asia Is One (1972) was even more ambitious, an anarchically assembled look at the intertwined histories of Taiwan and Okinawa as seen through Taiwanese immigrants in Okinawa, forced to work in the mining industries and facing abuse, oppression and uncaring employers. One scene on Okinawa’s main island cuts to another scene on an entirely different island, as the film hops from coal miners in Iriomote to parades in Okinawa, workers in Yonaguni and indigenous Atayal communities in Taiwan with barely a blink); soundtracks and testimonies merge, and what is discussed one moment may not refer to whatever is happening in the next. The film’s screening featured the collective’s surviving member, and two other specialists on the group, present for a discussion.
Okinawan culture and currents were spread throughout the festival. Partnering with the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI), the festival showcased two rare Taiwanese commercial films shot in Okinawa, Sunset Over the Horizon (1968) and The Love in Okinawa (1968). Long thought lost, prints of both films had recently been discovered in the 4Star Theater in San Francisco’s Richmond District in 2019, and were “repatriated” to Taiwan, then restored by TFAI. More contemporary ties to Okinawa were found in short films made across the Okinawan diaspora, including Harumi López Higa’s poetic Yonsei (Peru), Anya Vaughn’s The Tale of Mari (US) and Naomi Asato’s In Oba’s Sewing Needles: Fragments and the Work of Time (Brazil). A further connection emerged in the Pacific Film Competition, where Hawaii’s Alika Tengan presented his award-winning feature narrative Molokai’i Bound; Tengan’s mother is Okinawan. An intimate panel on Okinawan cross-cultural identity with Tengan, Higa and Vaughn, held in a cozy Brazilian restaurant-turned-performance/gallery venue, helped further connect audiences to filmmakers. For Tengan, the entire trip was a moving experience. “It was a special experience for me, as Tengan is an Okinawan name, and this was my first trip to any Asian country,” he shared. “I was deeply moved by the reception of Moloka’i Bound, and struck by the way Okinawan audiences resonated with some of the themes of our film, as they’re also still dealing with the long lasting effects of colonization, military occupation and the complex aftermath of having your native language banned.”
Other shorts programs solidified the idea of cross-cultural connections between the currents. A lovingly personal, poetic work, Aephie Chen’s Mamu takes a traditional, universal storyline—a daughter cares for her immigrant father in London, who’s battling dementia—and weaves something more remarkable out of it. We first meet the father in on a beach by the sea, playing with his young daughter, in what turns out to be his own memory. In reality, he is no longer by the sea, nor is his daughter young. Immigration and imagination, exile and nostalgia and the burdens of parent and child are played out both amidst both the broadness of London and the specificity of Taiwanese Amis indigenous culture.
“To have the Asia premiere for Mamu in Okinawa gave me a chance to meet local audiences and fellow Pacific filmmakers. I’m impressed and could feel the festival is building a new destination to connect the filmmakers in the area,” Chen said. “From the audiences questions and comments, I could feel the shared cultural struggles between Okinawa and Taiwan to maintain resilience in the present, acknowledge the wounded past and celebrate life with their craft and local philosophy.”
For a festival in only its second year, the program was remarkably cohesive, wide-ranging geographically yet remarkably concise thematically. For festival programmer and Okinawan film scholar Kosuke Fujiki, who was raised in Okinawa, the festival can hopefully serve many purposes: “By showing a wide range of films from across the Pacific Rim, our festival can place Okinawa’s local cinema within a broader context, not just limited to the boundaries of Japanese national cinema. I hope Cinema at Sea will continue to offer a fresh perspective on global cinema to Okinawan and Japanese audiences.” Asked about the condition of movie-going in general in Okinawa, he noted, “While mainstream multiplex theaters remain popular, Okinawa also has a few arthouse venues (which are called ‘mini-theaters’ in Japanese), such as the Sakurazaka Theater in Naha and Theater Donut in Okinawa City. Since the 2010s, domestic films have dominated the Japanese box office, so these smaller theaters are vital for introducing international films to local audiences.”
As a first-time visitor, it was difficult to quite grasp the festival’s audience, such as how many were Okinawan or based in Okinawa, visiting from mainland Japan or elsewhere or just other guests of the festival. There were few Okinawan filmmakers around, so it was difficult to get a portrait of the filmmaking scene itself. As of now, like Hawai’i a decade or more ago, films made in Okinawa are primarily outside productions—mainland Japanese or foreign films that happen to be set in Okinawa, as opposed to works made by Okinawans themselves. “In 2025, many mainland Japanese films set in Okinawa are going to be released. With the pandemic finally ending, Okinawa has once again become an attractive filming location for Japanese directors,” noted Kosuke. “As for local talent, I’m really looking forward to the new film from Ishigaki-born filmmaker Go Takamine, which seems to be in post-production.” Shogen shared further insights on the production scene on the islands. “In recent years, the number of movies and TV dramas shot in Okinawa have increased every year. I appreciate that our distinctive culture will be showcased through them, but to be honest, I’d like to see more opportunities for local actors to play Okinawan roles.”
For Canadian-born, Okinawa-based actor and producer Jeffrey Rowe, whose culture-clash romantic comedy The Rules of Living played to a particularly enthusiastic audience, the Okinawan scene—and the festival itself—is still evolving. “Both editions of Cinema At Sea have been inspiring experiences, particularly in how they brought together filmmakers from mainland Japan and international creatives based here. Interestingly, this time I didn’t meet any Okinawan filmmakers at the festival—though there were obviously Okinawan actors involved (such as Shogen and Aika Higashimori) —which speaks to both a challenge and an opportunity. If the festival continues to grow, I hope it can help cultivate a stronger local filmmaking scene, inspiring more Okinawans to tell their own stories rather than just having their homeland serve as a setting for outside perspectives. There’s a very real opportunity to build a more self-sustaining film industry rooted in Okinawan perspectives. The question is how to create the infrastructure and opportunities to make that happen.”
Somewhat buried in the “Okinawa Panorama” program was Ryuichi Ishikawa’s Enlightenment, one of the highlights of the festival and one of the most unique, original works I’ve experienced in the past year. A former competitive boxer, avant-garde dancer, auto-factory worker and host-club employee, Ishikawa discovered photography during his early twenties. Primarily self-taught, he soon found some notoriety through raw snapshots of underground, marginalized communities within his Okinawan hometown; within a decade, he has become one of the key figures in Okinawan photography.
Fittingly for a photographer, Enlightenment is a film of nearly static shots, each about one to five minutes long, that quietly observe an adult hikikomori, or shut-in, in his tiny apartment. Looking like a Ramones member accidentally abandoned in an Okinawan apartment complex, he plays the guitar for no one but himself, tries on seemingly ancient pieces of his wardrobe, stares at a computer screen, listlessly eats convenience-store meals dropped off by unseen hands outside the door or systematically tries out a dozen or more cigarette lighters. Now and again, he approaches his window, where the only hint that this takes place in Okinawa—the distant roar of military fighter jets overhead—bleeds through. Most of all, he appears to be slowly processing the technological detritus of the past two decades of his life, from Sony Walkmans, floppy discs and cassette tapes to old magazines and cartoons.
Whether through the lead protagonist’s oddly mesmerizing silent charisma or more likely due to Ishikawa’s ability to frame a scene, it’s still entirely riveting. At first the film seems to fit into the slow-cinema genre, or possibly be a quiet, observational documentary shot over a particular length of time, but soon other possibilities begin to emerge. Ishikawa signals the passing of time not through the lead protagonists’ look or clothes, but through subtle changes in the technology he interacts with; his bulbous 2005-era Mac switches to a bulky laptop at some point, and then later to a more modern Macbook. A sudden shift in gear during the last ten minutes open up even wilder questions, and offers even stranger possibilities.
Beautifully unconcerned with typical ideas of narrative or commercial filmmaking, Enlightenment is a true DIY piece of cinema. It’s both an embrace and rejection of Okinawan media representation as well; for Ishikawa, it seems important to remind audiences that here, people and problems are exactly the same as anywhere; shut-ins and social issues are found even amidst all tropical beauty. It’s no coincidence that Enlightenment takes place entirely in one sealed-up apartment building, with the only window facing an anonymous road, and the only reminder of Okinawa that fighter-jet echo from the skies. The film’s rebellion against typical ‘tropicalia” recalls so much of the recent work from Hawai’i, with such filmmakers as Chris Kahunahana and Alika Tengan looking for a truth beyond the postcard.
Due to language issues and time constraints, I was unable to speak with Ishikawa beyond a few brief conversations (he’s also still a working photographer, and was even shooting the festival’s gala events). Here’s hoping that Enlightenment can find an audience beyond Okinawa, Okinawan cinema can soon come into its own and Cinema At Sea can continue connecting the currents between cultures.
