Afternote is a project that started as a work about “movie theaters that once existed”, commissioned by YCAM, the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media. While the subject is the Japanese provincial city of Yamaguchi, the decrease in the number of downtown movie theaters seems to be a global phenomenon that has occurred all over the world. 
When we carefully read into historical facts that have not been recorded, like listening intently to a small voice, universal stories come to the surface, no matter how local they are. This project was truly an experience that modelled this. For about two years, together with YCAM staff members and a researcher, I listened to the recollections of over two hundred residents and searched through newspaper back issues looking for accounts of movie theaters. Then we ended up collecting more memories and records than we could possibly hold. 
The energy of the theater, the voice of the film narrator and the music of band players performing during the age of silent movies, the hand-painted movie signboards and the discount coupons that doubled as flyers. Most of these things have become forgotten, and completely lost. 
I named these records and recollections of the movie theater Afternote, and made a documentary film about it. It is a “postscript” of the people who held dear memories of the theater, and the “traces” that only existed in their memories.