With "Our Sounds," an audio-only documentary film about a group of foreign students that confronts audiences with a black screen, Japanese director Hiroshi Habu wants to show people how to see in a new way.
The 55-minute film is structured around a multilingual group of foreign nationals studying Japanese in the city of Takahashi, Okayama Prefecture, as they collaborate on writing a song about their experiences of living in Japan.
Shot in segments over around 15 days in 2021, it is a patchwork of unscripted interactions among the students, whom Habu was teaching Japanese. Some of the dialogue is in the students' native tongues, but enough Japanese is spoken for audiences to understand what is taking place.