Wendelien van Oldenborgh’s A Prelude Receives Special Mention at the Marseille International Film Festival, France

The filmwork, “A Prelude” by Wendelien van Oldenborgh—originally presented at Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] under the title したたかにたゆたう—前奏曲 (“A Prelude”)—has been awarded a Special Mention in the Flash Competition section of the 36th FIDMarseille International Film Festival in France.

This cinematic piece was created as part of the Dance Floor as Study Room – したたかにたゆたう exhibition held at YCAM from November 2024 to March 2025.
The film reflects the same title and immersive atmosphere as the installation, featuring characters dancing, walking, reading, and engaging in dialogue around various dimensions of conflict and lived experience.
Founded in 1990, FID Marseille is held annually and welcomed over 200 works from more than 30 countries at its 36th edition. The Flash Competition category focuses on short-form works, within which A Prelude received its Special Mention.

A Prelude

Filmed in Aoyama Hachi and Kinone Pension (including the road towards it), the work follows a group of people dancing, walking, reading, and discussing various aspects of conflict, life struggles, and their answers to these with initiatives and creative work. Throughout the film, they exchange personal stories and insights on several historical figures and events, each scene bringing differing but overlapping issues.

The two locations in the film are tributes to the act of protest and resistance against authoritarian power and are also used for queer-inclusive rave parties organised by WAIFU and SLICK－both started by a female collective after the exclusion of a trans-woman from a lesbian bar in Shinjuku’s gay area Ni-Chōme. Aoyama Hachi is a small club in Shibuya that hosted the first WAIFU parties in 2019. Kinone Pension is a house surrounded by a garden and strong metal walls squeezed between the runways of Narita Airport－the group that built the house has not let go of their land, and the airport was forced around it－a memento from the Sanrinzuka Struggles.

The conversations also evoke another field of reference through the work of two influential female artists from the Yamaguchi area. The author Fumiko Hayashi and pioneer filmmaker Kinuyo Tanaka expressed a strong feminist and class-conscious perspective in the middle of the last century through their popular novels, stories, and films.

As a continuation of the collaborative element of van oldenborgh’s work, several protagonists from her previous film ‘of girls’ are seen and heard alongside a few new members in the current cast, all with personal and professional connections to the movements and issues addressed. Their appearance in the film connects us to queer feminist presence in a world still dominated by patriarchal values.