The Japan Council of the University of Pittsburgh and SCREENSHOT: ASIA are pleased thrilled to announce that Mizuko Yamaoka's Maelstrom is the 2022 winner of the JDFA! Maelstrom is Yamaoka’s story of “loss and rebirth” due to a drastic life change from a car accident that damaged her cervical vertebrae. A profoundly humanist tale of tragedy and rebirth, Yamaoka's intimate documentary is both a telling of her own losses and a portrait of human experience.