International Celebration of Video Art

Winners of the Grand Prizes
for the 26th Tokyo Video Festival “TVF 2004”

Selected Video Grand Prize: Mr. Yoshihisa Ishizu, 41, of Ehime Prefecture for “Why Can’t I Do Sakaagari?”

JVC Grand Prize: Mr. Bertrand de Souza Lira, 45, of Brazil for
“Bom Dia, Maria de Nazaré!” (Good Morning, Maria de Nazaré!)

The 26th Tokyo Video Festival “TVF 2004,” sponsored by Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. (JVC), attracted record entries of 2,881 works from 36 countries and regions from around the world (938 works from Japan and 1,943 works from overseas; an increase of 21 percent from last year). From among the entries, 30 works won Excellence Award and 70 Selected Works were mentioned. After the final review, the Video Grand Prize and the JVC Grand Prize (one work for each prize) were selected from among the works that won Excellence Award, and the newly established High-definition Digital Video Camera Award (one work) was chosen from among the works that won Excellence Award or Selected
Work. In addition, three works were chosen for the People Awards from among the works that won Excellence Award by a popular vote on the Internet.

For the Video Grand Prize, Mr. Yoshihisa Ishizu (41)’s “Why Can’t I Do Sakaagari?” was selected.

Mr. Ishizu is a teacher of an elementary school in Ehime Prefecture in Japan. It is a record of a teacher (Mr. Ishizu), who was shocked to find that his pupils were unable to do the forward upward circling on the horizontal bar, undertaking to instruct them until all of his class could accomplish the circling. The heartwarming video vividly shows the pupils practicing while they encourage each other and devise various methods in their practice. Although the pupils were made to practice at first, they gradually began to practice voluntarily. The work was highly praised for looking at education from a new angle.

For the JVC Grand Prize, Mr. Bertrand de Souza Lira (45)’s “Bom Dia, Maria de Nazaré!” (Good Morning, Maria de Nazaré!) was chosen. Mr. de Souza Lira is a teacher from Brazil. The video
depicts how an FM radio station, set up in a poor community, draws the people in the community and spreads new and diverse modes of communication. Using the video media, the work captures the activities of a regional radio station that deals with the audio media. It was commended highly for showing how “the work of rebuilding a community and making a video production intertwined to bear rich fruits” (Mr. Susumu Hani).

The newly established High-definition Digital Video Camera Award went to Mr. Fumikazu Hatano (55) for his work “Land Close To The Sky-Traveling in Tibet in Summer”. Mr. Hatano is an office worker
from Kanagawa Prefecture in Japan. The work takes full advantage of the high-definition and wide images (width-to-height ratio of 16:9) of the hi-definition image technology.

The People Awards, which were selected by popular vote on the Internet, went to Mr. Yoshihisa Ishizu (41) for “Why Can’t I Do Sakaagari?”, which also won the Video Grand Prize, Mr. Ryoichi Sato (50, self-employed from Kumamoto Prefecture in Japan) for “That Dam, Who Needs It!”, and Sebastián Talavera Serrano (Spain) for “Dueños De Nada” (Owners of Nothing).