Films by Arata Mori

Germany, Japan 2024, 86 min
by Andreas Hartmann, Arata Mori

Every year, thousands of people vanish without a trace in Japan. Known as the Johatsu, or 'the evaporated,' they abandon their lives for various reasons, a troublesome relationship, mounting debts or threats from the mafia. Some get support from so-called 'night moving' companies, which help people to disappear and start a new life somewhere else. Taking an intimate look at the phenomenon of 'evaporating people,' JOHATSU – INTO THIN AIR depicts the inner conflicts and attempts at reconciliation of those who have disappeared and those who have been left behind.

Japan, Germany 2021, 65 min
by Arata Mori

Emilione, a million lies – so people nicknamed Marco Polo. They doubted his astonishing journey to the east. “A Million” depicts an imaginary city on the real urban cities along the new silk road – revived by the Chinese initiative’s alternative globalization – through the eyes of a filmmaker from the east. The modern adaptation of Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” confronts a fabricated, materialistic world in political transformation and wanders over the boundary between truth and fake.