Set against the grave social reality of Niigata Minamata disease, this debut film by Sato Makoto emerges from three years of living with and filming three elderly couples in the Agano River basin, portraying their everyday lives and dignified livelihoods. Staying close to the work that sustains a life with the river, to family, and to the slow passage of their later years, the film quietly reveals the joy and dignity of human existence. Having garnered top prizes at film festivals in Japan and abroad, it also provoked a powerful response as it travelled nationwide through independently organized screenings. A record that carries into the future the resilience of people living in coexistence with nature, the film is presented here in a special screening as the point of departure for Komori Haruka’s Special Prize–winning work in the Commission Project, Spring, On the Shores of Aga, which takes up the challenge of carrying forward the later memories of Aga.