SANYA, Tokyo, Broken city

Tokyo. The Sum­ida River runs under lanes of sus­pended motor­ways bridges. Along the banks of the river, lines of card­board shacks cov­ered in blue can­vas stretch for­ever, caught in the con­stant hum of the traf­fic speed­ing over­head. This is home for the home­less, the anti-city. This is where the mod­ern world’s mis­fit shore up, some­where between exile and asy­lum, scratch­ing a liv­ing together, walk­ing the city streets col­lect­ing empty cans and used card­board boxes to sell by the weight. They tell us about their past, social inter­ac­tions and about two worlds; the world where they live and the one they only walk through. Japan, the abstract machine. Their words cre­ate a new vision of Tokyo, speak­ing from the edge they talk about the centre. Directed by Olivier Nourisson & Kenji Lefèvre-Hasegawa