Mizuko
Kira Dane & Katelyn Rebelo
Documentary, animation, experimental, art house | United States | 2019 | 15min
In Japanese, there's a special word for an unborn life. Mizuko, which means “water child,” is used to refer to both miscarried and aborted pregnancies. In addition to this word, there's a Buddhist ritual for grief called mizuko kuyo that allows women to metaphorically return their water children to the sea. Mizuko (Water Child) tells the story of a Japanese American filmmaker’s personal story of abortion in the US against the impact of this cultural context. Weaving together different styles of animaton and Super 8 footage, the film is an intimate reckoning with the incomparable experience of getting an abortion.
Kira Dane : co-producer, co-director, writer, animator, editor
Kira Dane is a half-Japanese filmmaker and illustrator from New York, currently based in Nara, Japan. Having been shaped and informed by the polar opposite cultures of New York City and rural Japan, she is most comfortable in gray areas. And as an artist, she's most interested in telling stories that dig for nuance. Kira is a Film & TV graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and a 2019 fellow of the Sundance Ignite Fellowship Program. Her animated short documentary “Mizuko" was supported by the If/Then Shorts Program (Tribeca Film Institute, Field of Vision). It was nominated for the IDA Awards, won Special Jury Mention at SXSW and IDFA, along with Best Documentary Short at Atlanta Film Festival. Kira is a member of the Brooklyn Filmmakers Collective, the Video Consortium, and A-Doc.
Katelyn Rebelo : co-producer, co-director, director of photography, animator, editor
Katelyn Rebelo is a filmmaker based in Brooklyn. Her work combines non-fiction and experimental forms, often exploring stories that reimagine concepts of femininity, politics, and personal freedom. Most recently she co-directed, animated, and shot "Mizuko" supported by Tribeca Film Institute's If/Then Short Documentary Program. The film was nominated for Best Documentary Short at the 2020 IDA Documentary Awards, won Best Documentary Short at Atlanta Film Festival, and received special jury awards at SXSW and IDFA. She is currently a Creative Culture Filmmaker Fellow at Jacob Burns Film Center, and holds a BFA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts with a major in Film & Television and minor in Social & Cultural Analysis.
