Commentary: “From the age of 45, I had the opportunity to produce works that were really my own. That’s how I made The Cherry Tree with Grey Blossoms. It is one of my main works. I was inspired by a 1300-year-old cherry tree that I discovered by chance in 1969 (…) With my little sister as my partner for the project, we were thinking of using her poems to make a short film as a kind of musical piece singing the tree’s praises. But she fell ill, it was cancer, and she passed away exactly one year later (…). After her death, the initial musical plan disappeared and I was strongly attracted by the fascinating atmosphere of the cherry tree. While talking to the tree, I tried to capture its appearance in each of the four seasons. One year would have been enough to film four seasons, but the shooting took two and a half years. I didn’t have much free time. I needed another year and a half to finish a film that is only 43 minutes long. When I made it, I thought, ‘It’s OK if no one sees it. I’ll do whatever I want’. For someone like me, who had spent years making films for Iwanami, it became an act of self-search”.
(Extracts from Entretiens, témoignages, commentaires, by Teresa Marcos and Ricardo Matos Cabo, Débordements, october 2022).
Director: Sumiko Haneda. Country and year: Japan, 1977. Duration: 42′. Language: Japanese, Catalan and English subtitles. Screening format: 16mm