Filmmaker and CCA alumna Rika Ohara’s (BFA General Fine Arts 1983) recent film, The Heart of No Place (2009), garnered the Best Film (International) award at the eighth annual London Independent Film Festival (LIFF) in April. The film had its world-premiere screening at the Festival International de Films de Femmes de Créteil (the oldest women's film festival in the world!) and then by early 2010 made its way to the prestigious Göteborg International Film Festival in Sweden. As part of the prize, Ohara received a £50,000 postproduction deal with LIFF sponsor Prime Focus—equivalent to $80,400 in today's U.S. market!

Ohara wrote, directed, and starred in The Heart of No Place (Y. / Yoko Ono in dramatic reconstructions / Yoko Ono look-alike). The film is a "post-postmodern" interpretation of Yoko Ono’s life that probes the dubious hypothesis John Lennon’s widow may have been planted by a Japanese company to break up the Beatles.

The Heart of No Place was filmed entirely on Digital 8 in Los Angeles, Berlin, Tokyo, Liverpool, Death Valley, and Ho Chi Minh City, and pieced together on a desktop. The no-budget film features songs by Yoko Ono, Dieter Moebius (Cluster), and Michael Rother (Kraftwerk), Anna Homler, and the Dark Bob, with "the onscreen participation of many other art- and Krautrock luminaries."

According to Ohara: "The Heart of No Place began as an answer to a 'trade war'-era conspiracy theory that Yoko Ono had been planted by a Japanese corporation to break up the Beatles. The film weaves a string of surrealist tableaux originating as performance and installation ideas into a multilayered narrative, to present a view of capitalism and culture in transition." Watch the film trailer. See also additional film clips.

Ohara's interest in interdisciplinary art (performance art, installation, media art) goes back to her days as an interdisciplinary fine arts major at CCA. Ohara credits the influential surrealist photographer and CCA faculty member Vilem Kriz (1921–1994) as a major influence on her work: "He inspired rather than taught photographic techniques. I am a surrealist at heart. His courses were interdisciplinary without saying so. . . . his showing of films in his classes, as well as the tales of his childhood 'making surrealist movies' with scrap footage from a movie theater had a lot to do with my eventually making a film myself."

Rika Ohara currently lives in Los Angeles, working with Bluefat Music, an art and film production "media conglomerate in the making," but in particular she's writing for the Bluefat online magazine.

About the London Independent Film Festival
The London Independent Film Festival is the premier event for micro-budget and no-budget films in the United Kingdom. LIFF offers a fantastic opportunity for indie filmmakers to showcase their achievements, with spaces reserved for first and second time filmmakers and for films that have been overlooked by other events.

LIFF presents the best of low-budget filmmaking from around the world, and mixes it up with relevant industry discussions and targeted social networking events. LIFF's audience is London's sizable independent filmmaking community. It's an indie film festival for indie filmmakers.