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 celebrates the region of Tōhoku - "northeast" of Japan -, a little-known and superb territory that brings together the six northern prefectures of Honshu Island. Like Hokkaido, this mountainous area remains very rural and rather wild, subject to intense climatic variations throughout the year. Every winter, the "land of snow", a term used to describe a vast area along the coast of the Sea of Japan that includes part of Tōhoku, receives impressive amounts of snow. A handicap for the inhabitants, but an environmental benefit when spring comes, thanks to the abundance of meltwater that comes down from the relief in rice fields or salmon farms. In contrast, in the heart of the neighbouring and more temperate region of Kantō lies the immense eponymous plain, the largest in Japan. The most populous city in the world, Tokyo, has developed there: 38 million inhabitants live there, in the symbolic shadow of Japan's sacred mountain, Mount Fuji.

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.