The Present Past

The Present Past

2 Episodes

A woman wanders a golf course looking for her late husband’s grave, searching desperately for a place lost to time in Vietnamese director Pham Ngoc Lan’s gorgeous black-and-white short BLESSED LAND. It makes for a haunting prelude to THE NAKED ISLAND, Kaneto Shindo’s hypnotic, documentary-like portrait of a family also living in a place seemingly unstuck in time—a tiny, remote island in the Japanese archipelago where everyday life is a test of human endurance.

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The Present Past

2 Episodes

  • Blessed Land
    18:53
    Blessed Land
    Episode 1

    Blessed Land

    Episode 1

    Directed by Pham Ngoc Lan • 2019 • Vietnam
    Starring Nguyen Thuy Anh, Minh Chau, Hoang Ha

    In the dune landscape of a cemetery—or is it a golf course?—past and present converge in the search for a grave.

  • The Naked Island
    1:36:34
    The Naked Island
    Episode 2

    The Naked Island

    Episode 2

    Directed by Kaneto Shindo • 1960 • Japan
    Starring Nobuko Otowa, Taiji Tonoyama, Shinji Tanaka

    Director Kaneto Shindo's documentary-like, dialogue-free portrayal of daily struggle is a work of stunning visual beauty and invention. The international breakthrough for one of Japan's most innovative ...

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