Thousands of Years of Absence

In 2011, a few weeks after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, a group of Japanese filmmakers was formed. Anticipating a totally irradiated Japan, their ambition was to film all of the archipelago’s 6,852 islands before they became deserted.

Thousands of Years of Absence was awarded the CNAP Award at the FID Marseille 2025, for its ability to blend elements of fiction and documentary, as well as for the experimental nature of its approach, its reflective qualities, and its ability to question the world and its representation.

‘Visually, hypnotically beautiful shots—given a soft, at once nostalgic and unsettling texture by the use of the camera obscura—form a film whose images seem suspended between memories of before and visions of what is to come. (…) Each island-film is introduced by a number and the name of the island filmed. The images now carry the crispness appropriate to a present-day archive.’

(Cyril Neyrat, FID Marseille)