In today’s frenetic pace, what would it mean to inhabit a film, or perhaps a life, within the span of a day?

The Works and Days (of Tayoko Shiojiri in the Shiotani Basin) is an eight-hour fiction feature that offers a captivating portrait of a farming family in a small mountain village in Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. It was shot over a period of fourteen months and conceived over decades by directors C. W. Winter and Anders Edström. The film is an ode to the personal, familial, sonic, and temporal ties to the land in which the family lives and works. Winner of Best Film, Encounters section at the 2020 Berlin International Film Festival, the film is an arresting meditation on the seasons, on family, and on the passage of life and of time.

This film will be screened in its entirety over the course of a day with three intermissions.

C. W. Winter is an American director, screenwriter, and producer whose work predominantly observes drama and documentary genres. He studied at the California Institute of the Arts and attended the University of Oxford to complete his doctorate in art practice and theory. Before The Works and Days, Winter co-directed The Anchorage (2009) with Edström, for which they both received the Pardo d’oro Cineasti del presente award at the Locarno Film Festival.

Anders Edström is a Swedish photographer and award-winning filmmaker. His career began in fashion, shooting advertising campaigns for the likes of Jil Sander, Miu Miu, and Stella McCartney. In the 1990s, he collaborated closely with Martin Margiela, documenting many iconic moments at Maison Martin Margiela. His photography has been exhibited and published internationally. Edstrom has made several films alongside Winter, including One Plus One 2 (2003) and The Anchorage (2009).