At Space O, Omotesando Hills we held a screening of Asia International and Japan Program 5.

At the Q&A after the screening we had the chance to meet Eijiro Fujimoto (director), Neo Sora (director) and Junshin Soga (cast).

Our Priority, written and directed by Eijiro Fujimoto was screened first in the program. Mr. Fujimoto wanted to write a fight between a wife and a husband. He also talked about how he was getting into directing plays and how different it is from shooting a film.

The Chicken was based on a short story by Naoya Shiga the director, Neo Sora, was reading. It was a theme that he wanted to pursuit. When asked about his experience of New York he said that it was a city that is loud and annoying when you are there but once you are out of it, it was a city you would want to go back to. We asked Mr. Soga, who played Hiro in The Chiken, about how it was when he got the script and he told us that there was a common struggle when in New York that he wanted to express through the character.

15:40 – For the Asia International & Japan Program 6, Director Yuki Takashima of “Sneeze, along with Takuya Omoto and Narushi Takeda participated in the post-screening Q&A. Director Kae Ho of “The Supermission,” brought her veteran DP Yutaka Yamazaki, and producer Hiroko Kawasaki as well.

Director Takashima of “Sneeze” wrote the screenplay after seeing the news last year that masks were becoming scarce because of the Coronavirus. The shoot was hard work because they only one day to shoot the film. The “old man” in the film was an actor only in his 40’s! Yuki praised the excellent work of the make-up artists. In addition, the two actors were instructed by the director to act with great dramatic facial expressions and actor Takeda told the audience that his face was very sore the next day.

Director Kae Ho of “The Supermisson,” then took the stage with Producer Kawasaki and DP Yamazaki. They had all worked together on “Moon Rabbit” which was screened at our festival in 2019 in the Japan Competition. They talked about the process that led to the production of this short about a lone woman working in a supermarket at night. When asked about veteran actress Mariko Tsutsui who played the main character in the film, Kae said that she wanted to work with the actress when she saw her acting in previous films. DP Yamazaki told the audience that shooting in the supermarket was made easier by the bright lighting that7s used in the store so they didn’t need any extra production lighting at all. In addition, some of the products that appear in the film were made into original goods by the art design team. It created a little extra work for Producer Kawasaki but after watching Kae having fun with the art design team, she saw that it was worth it.

Today wast the last day at the Omotesando Hills venue but we’ll be back for four days of program screenings at iTSCOM STUDIO HALL in Futako Tamagawa Rise starting on Thursday June, 17th. We’ll see you there!