Le Cerisier à fleurs grises

In the mountains of Gifu Prefecture lies Neo Village, where there is a giant cherry tree said to be over 1400 years old. Stories surrounding this tree are told as we watch it pass through the four seasons. Spring arrives, and with it the tourists, bringing activity to the quiet village. The Cherry Tree with Gray Blossoms is the first independent film production by Haneda Sumiko, who had made art films and special education films at Iwanami Productions, and Kudo Mitsuru, who acted as producer.

"Usuzumi no sakura was Haneda’s first independent venture, following more than twenty years of employment at Iwanami Productions. In 1969, she visited a cherry tree in Gifu Prefecture said to be planted in the sixth century, making it one of the oldest in the country. As Haneda later recounted, when faced with the tree’s ancient, animistic majesty, a thought entered her mind: “With this tree, and this tree only, I could make a movie.” She initially planned to use poetry written by her younger sister in the film, but only one year later her sibling died of cancer. Haneda returned to the project in 1972, filming the solitary tree intermittently over two and a half years to capture its changing state across four seasons. The result is a poetic reckoning with mortality and memory at the crossroads of the human and nonhuman, anchored by a female voice-over and haunting appearances of an adolescent girl."
(Haus der Kulturen der Welt)