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Original Film Title: Cracks in Time
Director’s Name: Kiyono Sakashita
Writer’s Name: Kiyono Sakashita
Producer: Kiyono Sakashita
Country of Origin: Switzerland
Country of Filming: China
Language: Chinese
Runtime: 49 minutes 55 seconds
Film Description:
Cracks in Time is a 50-minute documentary composed of six interwoven short films, each reflecting the creative universe of a Chinese female artist aged from her 30s to 60s. Set against a backdrop of subtle yet seismic shifts in contemporary Chinese society, the film explores how the pandemic acted as a rupture—amplifying decades of personal memory, bodily perception, and emotional resilience.
Rather than tracing a chronological arc, the film becomes a visual meditation on fracture and continuity, unfolding through diverse materials: paintings, textiles, porcelain shards, and video archives. Each chapter adapts a distinct cinematic language, mirroring the artist’s own aesthetics—from static tableaus to handheld intimacy, from documentary realism to poetic abstraction.
Together, these six portraits form a collective image of a woman living on the land of China—steadfast, tender, and alert to time’s quiet turbulence. Cracks in Time is both personal and collective, revealing how individual creativity becomes a vessel of endurance and reflection amid social transformation.
This work marks the directorial debut of Sakashita Kiyono, who brings to the screen a curatorial sensibility shaped by years of cross-cultural engagement in China, Japan, and Europe.