Indievisual Digital Magazine

A Student of Contrasts – Nakano Ryota

Greeting visitors of Nakano Ryota’s homepage is a photograph of the director standing with a resigned expressionlessness in an ankle deep river though his trousers are cinched up mid-thigh. Depending on the size of device display it is being viewed, a wider image reveals he is on location which only enhances the tragicomic quality of the photo. The image was undoubtedly chosen for concisely encapsulating the credo at the filmmaker’s core. Nakano was not, as many of his peers and forerunners may have, particularly enamored with movies or television when he was young. He was, however, conscious of a need to express himself and was attracted to the feedback received from entertaining people around him. In university, this manifested as a foray into music before setting on the road toward a filmmaking career post graduation. His award-winning early short movies as well as his debut feature wrapped somber themes or situations in a unique humor, and at their heart is the portrayal of family which has been central to all his movies perhaps a...

Insider Looking Out – Yamamoto Hyoe

by Ben Dimagmaliw

Becoming a filmmaker requires specific skills. An understanding of and practical experience with film production techniques is a matter of course, however a non-English speaking filmmaker will also need to become English proficient if they aspire to the world stage. Unfortunately, the language barrier is still a daunting and significant obstacle for a large majority of Japanese filmmakers in 2019. Yamamoto Hyoe perhaps innately...

2019-07-20

Featured, Interview

Killer Smile – Asakura Kayoko

by Ben Dimagmaliw

There is a perceptual problem in cinema that women are not suited for or interested in directing genre movies. Making such an assumption about Asakura Kayoko based on her model-esque stature and charming smile would be a disservice to the well-versed director and passionate fan of genre fare. At the 2014 Etheria Film Night where Asakura’s slow burn horror short HIDE and SEEK screened, feminist...

2018-12-23

Featured, Interview

All In Due Time – Furuta Wataru

by Ben Dimagmaliw

If taken just on face value, the career of Furuta Wataru might seem inapplicable to a magazine about independent film directors. After all, the Shizuoka Prefecture native studied economics and computer programming at a Canadian university and upon graduation landed a job as a programmer for a computer company before being transferred to manage sales, advertisement, and promotion there. Only upon joining a production...

2018-02-13

Featured, Interview

Through a Theater Darkly – Ogata Takaomi

by Ben Dimagmaliw

The role of media in society has changed significantly over the last several years. It’s becoming more difficult to tell if media influences the masses or if the masses influence the media. Ogata Takaomi was becoming aware of this blurring of lines between sensationalism and journalism almost a decade ago. An avid lover of cinema since childhood, the Fukuoka native speaks of movies with...

2017-11-09

Featured, Interview

Eye On

My Small Land

Sarya has lived in Japan since she was five. She pretends to be German to her friends, which is easier than telling the truth. In reality, Sarya’s parents are...

Eye On

Intimate Stranger

46-year-old Megumi is a single mother who works at a baby clothing store. Her beloved 17-year-old son, Shinpei went missing a year ago, and she has desperately been looking...

Eye On

The Nighthawk’s First Love

Graduate student Aiko has a conspicuous facial birthmark that made her a target of bullying as a child and sapped her confidence as a woman. When a book partly...

Eye On

Ito

Ito Soma is a high school student in Hirosaki City, Aomori. Her hobby is playing the Tsugaru shamisen, a three-string instrument that is popular in her home prefecture. She...

Eye On

Aristocrats

Hanako and Miki come from different walks of life. While Hanako has enjoyed a privileged upbringing and a luxurious lifestyle, filled with social functions among Tokyo’s wealthy elite, Miki...

Eye On

Secret Breaths

Yuriko had been violently hurt by love and has given up on everything. She ends up wandering around an island where she meets a strange man, Iwai, who is...

Eye On

Until Rainbow Dawn

Takahashi Hana and Hoshino Ayumi are two deaf women who meet at a sign language society. Though bewildered by her attraction to someone of the same sex, Hana begins...

Eye On

I Quit, Being “Friends”

What is common sense to you, makes no sense to me. What is ordinary to me, is off-putting to you Worn out from reading too much into different situations,...

Eye On

On the Road to Love

One day, film director Ishii Tatsuya (now Tatsujo Kuya) began documenting his life, spurred by a phone call he received from Fukuda Mei, his girlfriend of two years who...

Eye On

The Sower

Mitsuo suffered debilitating mental trauma after volunteering to clear out the debris in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami. After spending three years at a...

25 Japanese Directors Talk Pandemic and Looking Ahead

by Ben Dimagmaliw

As 2021 opened much of the entertainment industry was still reeling from the impact brought on by the pandemic. Though productions are once again ramping up, they have to do so under strict safety protocols issued by labor unions and respective film commissions in the locales filming takes place. Meanwhile, the exhibition industry which bore the brunt of damage is still facing challenges of delayed release schedules, being circumvented by digital releases, and local safety protocols. Similarly, film festivals have had to adapt to the pandemic by formulating new ways to hold their events–those which could–though it remains to be seen whether they will be able to return to pre-pandemic operations in the near future. Reflecting on these as well as learning about movies which were filmed about or around the pandemic led to a desire to ask Japanese filmmakers two questions: 1.How did the pandemic in 2020 impact the work with which you are involved or productions you are or will be working on? 2.Moving forward, in other words a world “post-COVID,” has...

25 Japanese Directors Talk Pandemic and Looking Ahead II

by Ben Dimagmaliw

Following are more intriguing and candid responses by filmmakers who are striving to tell stories without compromise, but have had to take stock of what that will mean in a new normal film industry.

2021 Year-in-Review

by Ben Dimagmaliw

Instead of publishing a year-in-review article at the outset of 2021, I wrote an article compiling together information which had gone neglected over the previous year, but were still worthy of attention. My workload in 2020 necessitated putting Indievisual on the back burner so often the article was warranted. The only interview published then was for Nakano Ryota which has now graced the “Latest Interview” splash at the top of the site for two years! Unfortunately, with 2021 being similarly busy (a little less than 2020) no new interviews were published last year though one had been scheduled before the director had to cancel for personal reasons. I still do hope to interview this director sometime in the future. I did, however, manage speak with director Nakanishi Mai and write a feature about her experience shooting her latest horror short movie, Swallow. Ms. Nakanishi’s ability to speak English negated the necessity to translate our dialogue thus allowing for a quick production of the article which went live in October. 2021 was also the year I...

Serving Up Horror: Nakanishi Mai shares the backstory of her sophomore short Swallow

by Ben Dimagmaliw

In Swallow a striving actress is invited to a private, gourmet club only to discover her competition has prepared a horrifying banquet which devours her. Writer-director Nakanishi Mai follows up her haunting and atmospheric short Hana with a tale of the horrific depths to which human rivalries will go. Though she has worked for large companies such as Kadokawa, the bonafide genre fan has also dedicated time abroad collaborating with international genre stalwarts particularly in the realm of horror movies. Additionally, she founded the Scream Queen FilmFest Tokyo in 2013, a female-driven genre festival dedicated to sharing the unique and diverse visions that female artists bring to genre movies. With Hana, her directorial debut, she herself has become an exciting new voice in horror. And as with any sophomore effort, building upon the success of the first while continuing to creatively evolve took Nakanishi on a journey of opportunities and interesting turns. The seeds of Swallow first germinated in a short movie script which was scheduled to be shot in Korea that was cancelled. A Taiwanese producer told Nakanishi about a...

2021-02-02

2020 Belated News

2020 has been a year for the books. Aside from the political and social elephants in the room, this...

by Ben Dimagmaliw

2020-04-30

Indie Forum 2020

The 2020 Osaka Asian Film Festival took place under the shadow of COVID-19. Though at the time of this...

by Ben Dimagmaliw

2020-02-11

2019: Quality v. Quantity

The third full year of Indievisual brought much improvement in many areas and exciting developments personally for my writing...

by Ben Dimagmaliw

2019-09-24

Andrew Kirkham: Journey to the East

If life is a journey, then the road which has led Andrew Kirkham from his native United Kingdom to...

by Ben Dimagmaliw

2019-05-06

Indie Forum 2019

The 2019 Indie Forum section at the Osaka Asian Film Festival presented 10 movies this year, four fewer than...

by Ben Dimagmaliw

2019-02-16

2018: Looking Back & Forward

Indievisual’s first full calendar year (it went live in April of 2017 with a Year-in-Review posted 8 months later)...

by Ben Dimagmaliw

The Adventuress Spirit – Nishikawa Fumie

Published by Ben Dimagmaliw

The poster for Nishikawa Fumie’s The Azemichi Road depicts a young girl in school uniform captured ecstatically jumping mid-air on a country dirt road. It’s a pastoral image processed...

2017-09-01

Interview, More

Art of Persistence – Supersaurus

Published by Ben Dimagmaliw

For many, movies are manufactured reality, a stylized representation of it even if based on factual events. True situations are the purview of documentaries. However, the filmmakers at Supersaurus,...

2017-06-22

Interview, More

Entertainer with a Cause – Miyazaki Daisuke

Published by Ben Dimagmaliw

Yokohama born Miyazaki Daisuke posseses a pensive quality not readily evident in his relaxed gaze and mild-mannered smile. Make no mistake, however, inside burns a well stoked fire for...

2017-04-06

Interview, More

The Measure of Success – 100 Meter Films

Published by Ben Dimagmaliw

Synchrony is defined as “simultaneous action, development, or occurrence.” What better word to describe the connection between John Williams (no, not that one) and Shiozaki Shohei, the two principles...

2017-04-03

Interview, More