Noriaki Tsuchimoto
土本典昭
Noriaki Tsuchimoto is one of the most important figures in the history of Japanese documentary, famous for his compelling films on the shocking mercury poisoning incident in Minamata, Japan, and for his fascinating portraits of a modernizing Japan and a changing Asia. Tsuchimoto was involved in over 100 films, of different topics and styles, and Zakka Films is introducing four of those, starting with Minamata: The Victims And Their World, one of the masterpieces of world documentary; On The Road: A Document, a traffic safety documentary that was so powerfully critical of modern Japan it was shelved for 40 years; and two rare documents of Afghanistan filmed in the 1980s before the Taliban, including Traces: The Kabul Museum, the world’s only moving image record of a priceless collection that was largely lost to bombs and looting. The DVD comes with the booklet, The Documentaries of Noriaki Tsuchimoto, which includes a critical evaluation of Tsuchimoto’s career and commentaries on each film by prominent scholars.
DOWNLOAD our Noriaki Tsuchimoto Filmography here (pdf).
This link takes you to an enormous lode of data on Noriaki Tsuchimoto including production notes, scenarios, articles, interviews, lectures, etc. Before entering the fount of his wisdom, you need to get a key to open the gate. Send your name and e-mail address, and they will send you the key. All the data is in Japanese.
ACCOLADES FOR TSUCHIMOTO AND HIS FILMS
CINEASTE: Noriaki Tsuchimoto’s Living Records by Aaron Cutler
“Tsuchimoto reinvents himself on the basis of the subject matter. He never seems to be imposing the style on a given subject, but actually searching into the nature of a particular subject and then arriving at a style which is very specific to that film and not to any other.” — Jonathan Rosenbaum, Film Critic
“Years since its first appearance, Tsuchimoto Noriaki’s seminal Minamata: The Victims and Their World has lost no measure of its power to shock, enrage, and inspire. A landmark of socially-engaged documentary, Minamata continues to sound a global alarm about the human and environmental consequences of industrial pollution, searingly evoked through Tsuchimoto’s patient, compassionate lens.” — John Gianvito, filmmaker, Associate Professor/Emerson College
“A sobering, forceful case history that leaves little doubt as to the dire results of man’s current approach to the disposal of modern-living wastes.” — A.H. Weiler, The New York Times, September 20, 1974
“A distinguished Japanese documentary film-maker whose work displayed a consistent political commitment.” – The Times of London
Minamata: The Victims and Their World: chosen as one of the “Ten documentaries that shook the world” by the critic Mark Cousins.
“A powerful filmmaker.” – Japan Times
“Along with Ogawa Shinsuke, … Tsuchimoto was the most important postwar Japanese documentarist.” – Aaron Gerow, Associate Professor, Yale University
“Traces: The Kabul Museum, 1988, is significant because it represents the most comprehensive film documentation of the Kabul Museum in existence”
http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=36927&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Total running time: Approx. 150 minutes. / color 
Total running time: Approx. 120 minutes. / monochrome 
Total running time: Approx. 54 minutes. / monochrome 
Total running time: Approx. 32 minutes. / color 
Total running time: Approx. 42 minutes. / color