Japan From Above

Exploring the great island of Hokkaido, in the extreme north of the archipelago, this film highlights the natural beauty of this territory where nature remains the main character: it unfolds in immense spaces still largely wild, composed of powerful volcanic mountain ranges, countless crystal clear lakes and deep forests. Thanks to this tormented relief and sometimes harsh but beneficial climatic conditions, fauna and flora can find protected places to flourish. Colonized barely 150 years ago by the Japanese, Hokkaido is also a land of plains where sometimes a very intensive agriculture has developed. However, some producers live there in harmony with nature, in the footsteps of the Aïnus, the island's indigenous inhabitants, who are now trying to preserve their rich and endangered culture.

This film takes us to discover the treasures of the center of Honshu Island. From the vertiginous massifs of the Japanese Alps, which cover a large part of the Chubu region in the very heart of the island, to the eastern plain of Kansai and the cities of Osaka and Kyoto, essential links of the immense Japanese megalopolis and cradle of Japanese civilization, Japan still appears as a land with many facets. In Kansai, many ancient remains are part of the legend of this region where power, religion, mysticism and the arts were combined very early with refinement and splendour. We will discover that at the heart of this highly sophisticated society remain numerous crafts and know-how, often ancient and delicate, always extraordinary - swords, washi paper, fireworks, etc.. An authentic journey between tradition and modernity, from Kyoto to Nagano, through Nara and the Noto peninsula.

This film features Chūgoku, the western tip of Honshu Island, and Shikoku, the smallest of Japan's four "big" islands. Together they share a long history of cultural and commercial relations, both separated and united by the inland sea of Seto. Its shores are as sunny as they are populated: the great regional capitals such as Hiroshima - a place of memory - and Matsuyama are concentrated there, as are most of the activities. Its calm and rich waters, and the sunny and mild climate, have allowed the development of productions as diverse as aquaculture and olive growing, the speciality of the island of Shodoshima. The interior of Chūgoku - "the middle country" in Japanese - and Shikoku are on the contrary rougher and much less inhabited, but not avoided. The inhabitants of Shikoku in particular, see hundreds of thousands of pilgrims march every year on the great pilgrimage dedicated to Buddhist master Kobo Daishi. Shimane Prefecture is home to one of the most revered Shinto shrines in Japan. A spiritual, vibrant and mysterious Japan.

This film sets out to discover a southern, even tropical Japan. First on the island of Kyushu, volcanic land par excellence, which carries some of the most dangerous volcanoes on earth. If eruptions and earthquakes are frequent, the bubbling of the magmatic subsoil has also offered the inhabitants benefits, such as hot springs and other therapeutic baths, as well as rich and favourable lands for the cultivation of tea and rice. Gateway to foreign influences through its geographical location, first Chinese and Korean, then European, Kyushu welcomed Christianity into the archipelago - a heritage common to the city of Nagasaki and the offshore Goto Islands. Between the southern tip of Kyushu and Taiwan stretches over a thousand kilometers the arch of the Nansei Islands, a string of archipelagos including that of Okinawa, an exotic paradise that retains the stigmata of World War II and a permanent American military occupation. At the end of the Nansei, Yonaguni is the most western point of the Japanese archipelago and a paradise for divers.