Can Dolls Be My Neighbor (2019)

In 2001, Ayano Tsukimi moved back to her childhood home, Nagoro, Shikoku, to find that only 40 people were left in the once vibrant village of 350. The young moved to cities, the old outpaced by age. She started making dolls to guard against the crows in her field. One by one, her neighbors came back as life-size dolls built from clothes and memories. This is a documentary about the repopulating village of Nagoro, told from the perspective of Ayano's dolls. Part of Project Love of Things, Can Dolls Be My Neighbor is the leading episode to open up the conversation on our relationship to inanimate objects in a world of technological efficiency.