BOOK-PAPER-SCISSORS

つつんで、ひらいて

By Nanako HIROSE

UME FILMS - as PROD

Documentary - Completed 2019

In a documentary 3 years in the making, director Nanako Hirose tells the story of Nobuyoshi Kikuchi; a 75-year-old bookmaker who has devoted his entire life to the design and handcrafting of over 15,000 books.

Festivals
& Awards

Busan - BIFF/APM 2019
Leipzig Documentary Film Festival 2019
    • Year of production
    • 2019
    • Genres
    • Documentary, Art - Culture
    • Countries
    • JAPAN
    • Languages
    • JAPANESE
    • Budget
    • 0.6 - 1 M$
    • Director(s)
    • Nanako HIROSE
    • Synopsis
    • a 75 year old Japanese book designer Nobuyoshi Kikuchi has devoted his life to design over 15,000 books. The book designer’s job is not only to come up with the outstanding jacket of a book, but also to carefully choose the papers and the fonts, and layout them to create the unique physical book. Each design is inspired by the text in the books, and none of them are the same. Through the lens, we find not only the beauty of fabrication, but also the crisis of physical book’s existence. The director Nanako Hirose, who is an apprentice of Hirokazu Kore-eda, has filmed Mr. Kikuchi for over 3 years to make this film. Nanako hopes that the audience goes to a bookstore after watching this film, and touch and reconnect with books by his or her own hands. This is a film for all the book lovers out there in the world.