Events: Yokonori Film Festival coming to Hakuba

Time to top up your pre-winter powder stoke with three of the best new Japanese shred flicks at Hakuba Goryu on Sunday, October 20th.


It’s that time of year when the first sprinklings of snow dusts the peaks and new shred flicks are making the rounds. If you’re in Japan, head to Hakuba to catch three of the best of those at the Yokonori Film Festival in Hakuba on October 20th.

The Yokonori short film festival was founded in the Shonan surf region to show the depth of the domestic surf, skate and snow scenes to the a wider Japanese audience. With the chill in the air here in the mountains of Japan now, the main draw will be screenings of three new powder-filled movies from Heart Films, Takaharu Nakai and the Hokkaido crew, and Hakuba locals Hachi. Surf movie ‘This is Hiroto Ohara’ rounds out the Hakuba stop stay true to its ocean roots. 

*literally “sideways riding”


PURE JAM

This teaser for Pure Jam hit the spot and left us wanting more! Hokkaido needs little introduction as filming location, but with a harvest of 100% pure Hokkaido riding curated by Takaharu Nakai this one looks like it has all the right ingredients to be a real treat. Pure Jam’s rider list brings a variety of approaches to the powder, with riding from Takaharu Nakai, Ruiki Masuda, Yoshinari Uemura, Teppei Hirota, Yuri Okubo, Hiroumi Fujimoto, Shinya Nakagawa, Ryu Nonogaki, Masaharu Nakao, Toshiki Yamane, Kohei Kudo, Fumiyuki Murakami, Kazumasa Yamada, Motoki Takahashi, Haku Suzuki, Masaomi Harada, Yusuke Mino, and Keisuke Yoshida.

With such a top-shelf crew of riders, a big scoop of local knowledge, and bags of powder, this should boil down into pure stoke for winter. We’ll have this one on toast, right before going riding, please!


Heart Films: GATHERING

Heart Films are veterans of capturing the stoke of big mountain lines – this the 14th production from Keiji Tajima and the Heart crew. ‘Gathering’ brings together a crew of big mountain rippers across the ski/snowboard divide, and puts them in the mix together on road trips for lines from japan to Canada. On the snowboard side, veterans of big terrain Takafumi Konishi, Yoko Nakamura and Takaharu Nakai are joined by Hakuba backcountry guide Tomoki Fuse, Gentemstick styler Kazushige Fujita, and all-round ripper Aya Sato. There might be a few skiers in this one, but we’ll look past that when the go as big as Yu Sasaki or rip on a snowboard too like Taisuke Kusonoki.

Heart films say this one will show the struggles along the way to those dream lines …and if by struggles they mean tomahawking slams, most of them seem to be in this teaser! 


Hachi: LIFELINE 3

Hakuba local crew Hachi will round out the evening  with LIFELINE 3. If you’re not familiar with the Hachi crew, get the knowledge in our interview with Yuta and Masaki back in 2017.

Since then, the Hachi crew ranks have swelled, with LIFELINE 3 shot over the last 3 seasons, featuring Yuta Kobayashi, Masaki Kitae, Keita Yamazaki, Taichi Sato, and Ryu Yamashita getting down on the lines you can mind surf from your window in Hakuba.

No teasers of this one yet, so here’s the last instalment from Hachi:



Making the trip? Event Info:

Yokonori Film Festival Hakuba

Date: October 20, 2019 (Sunday)
Venue: Able Hakuba Goryu Escal Plaza
Doors open: 18:00
Entrance: 1,000 yen
More event info on the Yokonori Film Festival page here.

See you there!