The Witches of the Orient

Synopsis

Meet the former players of the Japanese women’s volleyball team. Now in their 70s, they used to be known as the ‘Witches of the Orient’ because of their seemingly supernatural powers on the courts.
From the formation of the squad in the late 1950s as a workers’ team at a textile factory, right up until their triumph at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo, their memories and true magic from long ago bubble up into a heady brew where fact and fable fly hand in hand.

Director Biography

Julien Faraut (1978) is a documentary filmmaker from France. After studying history, he has worked for the Institut national du sport in Paris, where he supervises a collection of 16mm films. Using these collections, Faraut makes his own visual essays, combining sport history and documentary art. In the Realm of Perfection (2018) screened at IDFA and won a Public Award at Berlinale.