The Farming of the old times (1988)

Overview

A documentary made at the very end of the Showa era, looking back at traditional agricultural models as they still existed at the beginning of this same era (in the 1930s). A working year is recreated in Kanegasaki (Iwate Prefecture, Tohoku region). From "threshing the paddy fields" with a hoe in April to "filling the ground with barley" in April of the following year, this film photographs seasonal agricultural work and crops such as hemp and chestnuts, showing how the ancestors were engaging their all bodies and using their ingenuity to cultivate. In order to transmit the spirit of their devotion to the earth to future generations, this documentary film faithfully reproduces and records the agricultural tools, the cultivation of rice, wheat and soybeans of yesteryear, which are on the verge of being forgotten.

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