YAMANAKA (2025). Color, 39 min.

“YAMANAKA” is an ethnographic film shot over the course of one year in Yamanaka Onsen, a historic hot spring town in the mountains of Japan. Produced and Directed by Can Tamura.

Can Tamura

Born 1970 in Dover, Delaware, USA.
 Lives and works in Kanazawa, Japan.

Can Tamura is an artist, filmmaker, and audiovisual anthropologist. He earned his BA in film at Antioch College (USA) and MA in Visual Anthropology, Media and Documentary Practices at the University of Münster (Germany). Working primarily in Japan, Türkiye, and Mongolia, he makes experimental documentary films that explore the intersection between ethnographic film and art. He was a participating artist in Oku-Noto Triennale 2020+ and Echigo Tsumari Art Triennale 2022.

Director’s Statement

I produced this film over the course of one year as part of the Yamanaka Onsen Art Project with Art Front Gallery exploring the possibilities of research-based contemporary art practices in a historical hot-springs town in Japan. It is an observational and collaborative film, a poetic rethinking of sensory ethnographic and ethnofiction methodologies and aesthetics.