Rebuilding an Old Japanese House (1981) Richard Leacock & Rachel Strickland

In 1979, five Japanese craftsmen came to reassemble a Kyoto silkweaver’s 150 year old townhouse that had been packed in crates and shipped to Boston. A first-hand observation of traditional tools and construction techniques, including three Shinto housebuilding ceremonies, this documentary won Gold Prize in UniJapan Association’s International Competition for Films on Japan. Rachel Strickland works as an independent filmmaker, documentary videographer, interaction designer/inventor, and media artist. Since making documentary films with cinéma vérité pioneers Richard Leacock and Ed Pincus in the 1970’s, her research and art have focused on cinematic dimensions of the sense of place, the animate and ephemeral dimensions of architectural space, and new paradigms for narrative construction in digital media.