Collection of four shorts by Kaori Oda

Although Oda is well-known for her sensorial, underground cinema, Oda’s same desire to cross the threshold between different worlds is laid bare within her personal short films: Thus a Noise Speaks (2010) which restages Oda’s own coming-out in her family home; Karaoke Cafe BOSA (2020) which observes the elderly patrons of a karaoke kissaten where Oda’s mother worked; TEN (2017), a distorted, surreal reworking of her home videos; and finally, her most recent film Recording with Mother: ‘Working Hands’ (2025), which depicts in reverse chronology the working life of her mother, who Oda attempts to understand beyond her role as a mother.

Critic Emerson Goo writes, as part of our Kaori Oda publication:

"'Home' in her films is not a domestic enclosure, but a geography of the various places that have sheltered and changed us on our journeys. Like Chantal Akerman and Sophie Calle, Oda has approached what is nearest to the self by observing its reflection in the impersonal and unfamiliar. Which is why the films in which she does return to her home city of Osaka — placing her parents and herself on screen — are among her most tender and radical works, which explode traditional notions of identity, family, and belonging.”

Film programme

Thus a Noise Speaks, 38 min.
TEN, 11 min.
Karaoke Cafe BOSA, 13 min.
Recording with Mother "Working Hands", 25 min.

Curated by Cici Peng, Sine Screen. Followed by an in-person Q&A with Kaori Oda.

With thanks to Daiwa Foundation for making this retrospective possible.