Ryutaro Nakagawa: FIPRESCI Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival

Thank you. I have been invited to several overseas film festivals before, but this time felt somewhat different.

It was a fresh experience to have the Japanese media all calling out to me at once. It was a strange sensation to have the local people applauding and asking for autographs as we walked the red carpet.

Spontaneous applause broke out from the press. Members of the Russian Film Critics Federation also told me it was very well-received, and that was the first moment I felt a slight sense of confidence in this film.

I headed home via Dubai, and when I connected to the Wi-Fi at the airport, I had 150 messages waiting for me. I thought to myself, "Wait, did I really have that many friends?" (laughs).

I didn't think so at all. In my film festival career up to that point, the highest recognition I had received was in the Japanese Cinema Splash section of the Tokyo International Film Festival. Since it was my first time even participating in a competition, just being able to take part was enough.

I had been looking toward international activities for a while, but I never imagined I would actually receive an award.

That's right. You contacted me then and arranged a screening at the Senior High School. Since then, Mr. Ishikawa, you have supported me in various ways, and for this film, "Summer Blooms," you were even listed as an "Executive Producer."

I cut that down to a two-hour script and then edited it down to 90 minutes.

There was a scene with cherry blossoms, so we absolutely had to shoot that first. There was a place in Saitama where you could see canola flowers and cherry blossoms together, but within the dates the blossoms were out, the lead actress Aki Asakura was only available for one morning. During last year's cherry blossom season, there were hardly any sunny days, but it happened to be sunny just during that specific time on that day.

I felt lucky and thought, "With this, maybe I can manage to finish shooting until the end."

It might be close to the feeling of the first day of a school festival or sports day. I've never worked very hard at either of those, so I don't know exactly (laughs).

Everyone is filled with the excitement of "It's starting now." Since I work with new actors and staff for every film, I can maintain a fresh feeling every time.

Of course, there are challenges. There are specialists for cinematography and sound, and naturally, they have more knowledge and experience in those fields. So, I hear that in some cases, even veteran directors can have friction with the technical departments. But that's exactly why I take that as a given and believe that the director's important role is how much passion they can instill in the whole team at the very beginning.

I feel that I am currently at a stage of meeting new actors. A stage might come where I work with a fixed set of actors, like the old masters such as Director Kurosawa or Director Ozu, but I think that's something that changes like the seasons.

Direction should change based on the other person's personality, so I don't think it's right to apply a uniform method of direction. Therefore, for a newcomer like me, now might be a period to work with as many different people as possible and learn.

However, I have a strong desire to create works again with the actors who worked with me when we were young, as we get older.

That is something I value. I feel that a film where someone with no acting experience can stand alongside professional actors might be one ideal form.

That happens, but I often write with a specific actor in mind from the start. Also, if an actor I hoped for can't appear, I rewrite the script to match the person who is newly cast.

I really wanted Ms. Takahashi to appear. She came to the location in Toyama in between her stage work in the countryside. She spent her entire three-day break to come, and I was truly grateful.

I consider "film director" to be a job title, and "poet" to be a name for a way of life. You aren't a poet because you make a living from poetry; if a feeling heart overflows into words, even if it's a monologue or a scribble in the margin of a notebook, I think that person is a poet. Isn't being a poet a way of life where you discover the world and yourself through words?

In contrast, a film director has specific responsibilities and professional processes that must be undertaken, so I think of it as a job title.

I originally thought I would make films once I entered university, but it was more like gathering friends who seemed free and playing around with a camera; I don't think I intended to make it a career.

When I became a junior and everyone started job hunting, I felt that I wasn't very suited to getting a normal job and adapting to a company or society. So, thinking that quantity was more important than quality anyway, I shot a lot of films and submitted them, and they got picked up for awards at student film festivals and such.

One of those was a work called "Calling." The budget was almost zero, and the staff was just me and a cameraman. It was a film with not a single line of dialogue.

That won the Best Cinematography award at the Boston International Film Festival and was released in theaters on a small scale, and the next one, "A Small History of Raindrops," was selected for the New York City International Film Festival, and things connected from there.

I don't think that has much to do with it. Poetry is an expression of the heart, but a script has a large technical aspect as a map for making a film. To put it broadly, it might be a matter of using the heart versus using the head.

However, when I would secretly write dialogue in the margins of handouts during university classes, stories would sometimes be born from that. If you look at them as fragments, they are close to poetry, but when you connect them, they sometimes become like a script.

There are many works that triggered me to shoot films, but if I were to name three in the order I encountered them, they would be "Princess Mononoke" (1997), "The Castle of Sand" (1974), and "The Phantom of the Opera" (2004). "The Castle of Sand" is based on a Seicho Matsumoto novel and is a work by Director Yoshitaro Nomura, who was also from Keio. I watched the Matsumoto-Nomura duo's works like "The Stakeout" and "Zero Focus" one after another during middle school. I also liked Director Kon Ichikawa's Seishi Yokomizo series.

I watched it at a theater on the day my high school entrance exams ended and was captivated; I went to see it 15 times. I spent all the allowance I had saved (laughs).

Watching this film, I got the feeling that film can forge the world itself. You can create a non-existent world as something that exists. I think there was a quote by Sartre like "existence precedes essence," and I feel that film is exactly that.

In principle, a film is nothing more than light projected onto a screen. However, in the darkness of a theater, it exists. Isn't that what guarantees the richness of film as a medium? When the audience can truly experience a film in the darkness, I think it can be said that the film exists.

As a future dream, I have the ambition to try reinterpreting and remaking "The Phantom of the Opera" myself. I might have to go to Hollywood for that, though (laughs).

It's simply because I'm contrary, but there was a pushback against the trend that "it's Waseda for theater and film" (laughs).

Thinking back now, it might be a cheeky thought, but I didn't think film was something to be learned at school, and I unilaterally assumed that schools where you could study film professionally were symbols of authority; to be honest, I had a childish rebellious spirit in that regard.

I wasn't a very serious student (laughs).

I was always looking for places on campus with few people with my best friend and talking endlessly. So I have memories in every corner of both Mita and Hiyoshi campuses. Conversely, I might only have memories in the corners (laughs).

In Professor Tomomi Matsumura's seminar, I chose a theme like the difference in how Kenji Mizoguchi and Mikio Naruse depict women.

I feel like it was all Waseda when I was a student, but I have the impression that Keio graduates suddenly emerged from a slightly older generation. Director Norihiro Koizumi of "Chihayafuru" is also from Keio.

I certainly respect Ms. Sugino. I think there is significance in the fact that she is challenging ways of filmmaking that are separate from the Japanese filmmaking system. Ms. Sugino's producer, Kosuke Ono, is also a Keio University alumni and someone with deep insight into world cinema.

Anyway, I am still young, so even if I could shoot a big hit now, for example, it wouldn't last for decades. Even if the quality of what I make improves, people around me might think of me as someone who "stopped selling." Since there's no point in selling temporarily only to be consumed, I believe it's essential to build a foundation where I can continue to make films consistently while gaining solid strength.

I make an effort to do that. Unlike Director Hayao Miyazaki, who creates a masterpiece once every five years, if young directors like us took five years for the next one, we would be forgotten immediately. To put it extremely, I even think it's better to make ten bad films in five years than one masterpiece in five years.

The significance of watching a movie in a cinema can be pointed out from two aspects.

Media is moving from television to the internet, toward things that can be consumed more closely, and while that itself isn't necessarily bad, I think the aspect where only frivolous things are consumed cannot be overlooked. That's why I think the role assigned to film, a popular art form that is a burden to both watch and create, is actually increasing.

Hayao Miyazaki's films have a mass appeal that anyone can go see, while at the same time, they are by no means light. I believe it is my life's mission in the long run to create such works.

The other aspect is that cinemas bring darkness and silence into our lives. Living in a city, you can hardly get any darkness or silence. It's hard to find complete darkness on a night road, and even at home, you might fall asleep with the computer or TV on. There are even the sounds of the air conditioner and refrigerator.

In that context, a cinema is almost the only place where you can experience darkness and silence. As a reason for watching a movie in a theater, it's often said that "many people watch the same thing," but I think there is also the aspect of "sharing silence with many people."

That's true. If you do that, you haven't experienced "reality." In reality, things you miss can never be seen again, and words or sounds you fail to hear can never be heard with the same resonance again. Since you can't rewind a movie in a cinema, if you miss it, it stays missed. That's exactly why I think it can become an existence equivalent to life.

I'll do my best. When the script is ready, I'll bring it to you again.