Experiencing Interruptions?

Pain Of The Anonymous

Struggling to find work and entrenched in a personal health crisis, a former middle school teacher accepts a position as an online content moderator. She is faced daily with death, violence, and abuse—and reminders of unspeakable past traumas. As she becomes absorbed in her work, she endangers her stability, relationships, and psyche. Pain of the Anonymous explores how dehumanization and sympathy clash in a world numb to the plight of its people.

  • Daichi Amano
    Director
  • Daichi Amano
    Writer
  • Moon Cinema Project
    Production
    And So We Put Goldfish In The Pool.
  • Makoto Shimizu
    Producer
  • Satoru Takei
    Producer
  • Ayaka Ohnishi
    Key Cast
    "Rinko"
    Kumiko: The Treasure Hunter, Higanbana in the Rain,
  • Ryuju Kobayashi
    Key Cast
    "Kazuya"
    Guilty of Romance, Tokyo Sunrise
  • Tomoaki Ogura
    Director of Photography
  • Utena Kobayashi
    Music Composer
    12 Suicidal Teens
  • Naoko Asari
    Sound Designer
    Kiki's Delivery Service, Only Yesterday, Whisper of the Heart, Departures
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    27 minutes 6 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    February 3, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    48,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Japan
  • Country of Filming:
    Japan
  • Language:
    Japanese
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital 4K
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1.85:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Seattle Asian American Film Festival
    Seatle, Washington
    United States
    March 3, 2022
    World Premiere
    Official Selection
  • Busan International Short Film Festival
    Busan
    Korea, Republic of
    April 27, 2022
    Asian Premiere
    Official Selection
  • CAAMFest
    San Francisco
    United States
    May 12, 2022
    Official Selection
  • Sapporo International Short Film Festival and Market
    Sapporo
    Japan
    October 8, 2022
    Japan Premiere
    Best National Short
Director Biography - Daichi Amano

Daichi Amano is a filmmaker based in Tokyo. While enrolled at California Institute of the Arts, he studied under Thom Andersen. His documentary short "My God Never Dies" premiered at Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival in 2019. His scenario "Pain Of The Anonymous" won the prestigious Moon Cinema Project's short film grant, whose previous winner "And So We Put Goldfish In The Pool.” (Directed by Makoto Nagahisa) won Short Film Grand Jury Prize at Sundance 2017.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

In my documentary “My God Never Dies,” I filmed Rohingya refugees in Japan. They would often show me videos their friends and family in the homeland sent to them. Villages being burnt down by the military. People being stripped down naked and held at gunpoint. They would quietly explain to me the atrocities happening in the distant land they call home.

Around that time, I found an article about content moderators. They get paid to continuously watch and delete horrible and explicit videos. Innumerable amounts of images in this world are deleted without us knowing. Somewhere out there, somebody faces these violent images for us, suffering from the evil it contains.

“Violence turns anybody subjected to it into a thing.” - Simone Weil

This story was conceived when these ideas came together: confronting the evil within mankind by imagining “anybody subjected to it.” The film doesn’t show graphic violence. Instead, it shows what is left after violence : the pain.