Passed Down – dir. Chihei Tanaka

Original Film Title: Passed Down

Director’s Name: Chihei Tanaka

Writer’s Name: Chihei Tanaka

Producer: Chihei Tanaka

Country of Origin: Japan

Country of Filming: Japan

Language: Japanese

Runtime: 6 minutes 19 seconds

Film Description:

In a small village tucked away in rural Japan, there exists a sacred Buddhist statue — one that has been carefully preserved and passed down through generations, revealed to the public only once a year. But on the very night of its unveiling, an unexpected fire engulfs the temple. The protagonist’s father, a master sculptor of Buddhist statues, rushes into the flames in a desperate attempt to save the statue that lies at the heart of the village’s faith — and never returns. The statue itself is largely consumed by the fire.
Left behind, the protagonist is nothing more than an inexperienced apprentice, without the skill to carve the statue anew with his own hands. Overcome by grief and a profound sense of helplessness, he discovers the detailed records and documentation his father had left behind. With these vast materials fed into an AI system, he embarks on an unprecedented endeavor — to reconstruct the lost statue’s form and restore it to something as close to the original as possible.
A young man without mastery of his craft turns to the most advanced technology available to resurrect the vital core of his village. What unfolds is far more than the restoration of a single statue. It becomes a journey of hope — one that carries forward his late father’s devotion, the village’s long-held traditions, and the faith of an entire community into the future.