Yearly on the Tokyo Worldwide Movie Pageant, the programming staff makes an effort to champion rising expertise that challenges preconceived notions of what Japanese cinema is or could be. Via their Ladies’s Empowerment and Nippon Cinema Now strands, the pageant typically showcases new work from feminine and non-binary filmmakers who carry their distinctive worldview to the large display. On the 2025 version of the pageant, three of probably the most thrilling filmmakers displaying their work have been Mika Imai (Kiiroiko), Chihiro Amano (Sato and Sato) and Keiko Tsuruoka (Saikai Paradise) whose movies confront notions of affection, household, belonging and residential. Amid the frenzy of the pageant, we caught up with these three trailblazing filmmakers to search out out what informs their creative follow.
Get extra Little White Lies
Chihiro Amano
Sato and Sato traces one couple’s relationship over the span of fifteen years, from romance blossoming between Sachi and Tamotsu at college to the trials and tribulations that develop with marriage, careers and parenthood.
The place did your ardour and curiosity in filmmaking start, and the way did that remodel into making movies?
Amano: I was at all times very fond of creating issues once I was a little one, however I by no means actually was into films. Till I was in college, I noticed possibly one massive Hollywood tentpole a yr, and that was about it. I by no means realized folks might truly make films.
Proper across the time I was about to complete school, I began watching films at midnight in Japan, as a result of on Japanese tv they’d play films in the midst of the night time. There have been these form of not-fancy films, very removed from the Hollywood massive titles like Titanic. Though they weren’t fancy, they have been actually attention-grabbing. I grew to become fairly . I even noticed La Strada by Fellini. That was once I began to suppose, “Oh, possibly it’s attainable for me to develop into concerned in films. Is it the form of factor the place even I might get a shot?” I suppose that was the primary inspiration for me.
Due to that feeling, I joined the film membership at college, the place we might get along with mates and make our personal films. That half was actually enjoyable, and we additionally had a likelihood to display [our films] for folks, after which they’d give us their suggestions and their impressions. That was so stimulating, I felt I wished to proceed.
After college you continued filmmaking. How tough did you discover it to pursue filmmaking as a profession? Within the UK and in America, and a lot of the world, it’s nonetheless very tough to be a feminine filmmaker. My notion of the Japanese movie business is that it’s the identical, fairly tough to interrupt by means of as a girl. What have been a number of the challenges you confronted as a feminine filmmaker?
It’s been very exhausting the entire time, however I suppose by way of being a girl, I was doing my very own impartial movies, I was beginning to win awards in home movie festivals and movie shows, and I was lastly at a level the place I might name it my job. I was truly being paid to make films once I obtained married and I obtained pregnant. I assumed after I had the newborn, I might come again and proceed to make films. There was a feminine producer who was very caring of me and making an attempt to make the film business higher. I instructed her that I’d gotten pregnant and he or she was actually shocked. Like, “What? Effectively, Amano-san, you’ve made it this far and now you’re not going to have the ability to make any extra films.” I didn’t perceive as a result of I felt as soon as I have the newborn, I’m nonetheless me, I’m nonetheless going to have the ability to proceed my work. However in actuality, once I had the newborn, I stopped getting work fully. I suppose folks thought, “Oh, she’s a girl. She now has a child, so we will’t ask her to do work.”
Till then, I suppose there have been sure proposals that got here my method as a result of I was a younger girl. I was a feminine amongst many male administrators and possibly that was why I would get sure alternatives. However as soon as I fell out of that class, these proposals have been not coming to me. I was working freelance. The entire daycare facilities in Japan have been full and I couldn’t, as a freelancer, get a spot for my little one. If I couldn’t get my child into daycare, I couldn’t write scripts; if I couldn’t write scripts, I couldn’t make films — it was like I hit a wall in all instructions. It was actually robust.
The movie offers very immediately with the concept that, as a girl, after getting a little one, what are your obligations, and the concept of going again to work. It’s very stunning for folks within the movie that Sachi goes again to work and Tamotsu stays residence with the newborn. I was going to ask if it was impressed by your experiences, nevertheless it seems like these sorts of points could have been a part of your personal life. Is that the case?
Sure, certainly. In the event you have been to consider the film, I was extra Tamotsu as a result of I felt like my world had come to a standstill. I might solely depend on my husband for our livelihood; I would keep at residence caring for home chores and elevating the newborn. I felt like I had been deserted by society. My id was shaken. I was pissed off and below a lot of stress, and I would take it out on my husband. However there was additionally a realization. After a whereas I was capable of put my child in daycare, and progressively I was capable of begin my work once more. It was time to make a film. In the event you shoot a film, you need to be away and work exhausting for one to 2 months. Throughout that point, my husband must do the family chores and lift the newborn. I was away from morning until night time, working outdoors [the home] — then I grew to become Sachi.
That was my expertise: I’m working outdoors [the home], I come residence to my husband, who’s accomplished the home chores and been elevating the newborn the entire day, and he’s mainly a mirror of my earlier self, me resentfully. Then I realised it’s not about gender; it’s about your place. In the event you tackle a completely different place, then you definitely see fully completely different surroundings. I suppose having these opposing experiences is what led to this film.
