While I am writing this, it is already 4am in the morning. At 11:30am, I will be flying off to Sapporo in Hokkaido for the Japanese premiere of LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER in Sapporo Short Fest.
This post is supposed to be published automatically while I'm still flying.
I have been staying in Japan for four years, yet Sapporo, or rather, Hokkaido in its entirety, had lost neither of its mystique in my heart. In these four years, I have dreamt of going, had wanted so much to go, yet the air ticket prices were too much, and I didn't dare to imagine what would it be like going there alone.
Because of films like Shunji Iwai's LOVE LETTER or Yasuo Furuhata's POPPOYA (RAILROAD MAN), I have a romanticized image of the place in my heart.
This precious, snow-covered place depicted so beautifully in Japanese films.
How I have wished that I could go there. I had yearned for it so much that I found it frustrating.
Even without the snow, I imagined during the lavender season, a field of lavenders, like a sea of brilliant purper, I wondered what would it smell like.
Every time when I try to write a feature film, I would try to write in some Hokkaido scenes, just so I could find a way to get there and shoot at its wilderness... all wishful thinking. Nothing had ever materialized.
I never got to go to Hokkaido, but I had been to Shirakawa Village when I was 17. The place was so beautiful that it haunted me for a decade. It haunted me not only because of what it was, but also what I thought it could have been. I was there when it was autumn, I loved the place. But then I saw photos of the place in winter, I was utterly bewitched.
Going back to Shirakawa-go to shoot the film last year felt like a dream. It felt so long ago, and it also felt so ephemeral. The images I saw early in the morning were so special that I knew I could ever describe them, and all I could do was to fold them into pieces and keep them in my heart.
I find it rather fitting to premiere LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER, a film which is mostly a depiction of a winter that I have yearned for in my mind, at the very place which I had fantasized for half of my life. Let's see how audiences will react. But for now, I just want to see what Sapporo is really like.
This post is supposed to be published automatically while I'm still flying.
I have been staying in Japan for four years, yet Sapporo, or rather, Hokkaido in its entirety, had lost neither of its mystique in my heart. In these four years, I have dreamt of going, had wanted so much to go, yet the air ticket prices were too much, and I didn't dare to imagine what would it be like going there alone.
Because of films like Shunji Iwai's LOVE LETTER or Yasuo Furuhata's POPPOYA (RAILROAD MAN), I have a romanticized image of the place in my heart.
This precious, snow-covered place depicted so beautifully in Japanese films.
How I have wished that I could go there. I had yearned for it so much that I found it frustrating.
Even without the snow, I imagined during the lavender season, a field of lavenders, like a sea of brilliant purper, I wondered what would it smell like.
Every time when I try to write a feature film, I would try to write in some Hokkaido scenes, just so I could find a way to get there and shoot at its wilderness... all wishful thinking. Nothing had ever materialized.
I never got to go to Hokkaido, but I had been to Shirakawa Village when I was 17. The place was so beautiful that it haunted me for a decade. It haunted me not only because of what it was, but also what I thought it could have been. I was there when it was autumn, I loved the place. But then I saw photos of the place in winter, I was utterly bewitched.
Going back to Shirakawa-go to shoot the film last year felt like a dream. It felt so long ago, and it also felt so ephemeral. The images I saw early in the morning were so special that I knew I could ever describe them, and all I could do was to fold them into pieces and keep them in my heart.
I find it rather fitting to premiere LAST FRAGMENTS OF WINTER, a film which is mostly a depiction of a winter that I have yearned for in my mind, at the very place which I had fantasized for half of my life. Let's see how audiences will react. But for now, I just want to see what Sapporo is really like.
