Midwest’s Only Japanese Film Festival Showcases 14 Films - Enthusiastic “Seppuku Pistols” Gives Surprising Performance
The second year of the Chicago Japan Film Collective (“CJFC”) - the only cinema festival in the Midwest that features Japanese films - brought 14 narratives and documentaries to Japanese movie fans from May 21 to 30. Three of the 14 films were shown at theaters in Chicago and the rest were streamed online.
CJFC was formed by Chicago-based media enthusiast Yuki Sakamoto in 2021, with co-founder Hiroshi Kono of New York. The screening of Japanese films is organized by the CJFC Executive Committee and co-presented by Full Spectrum Features.
Sakamoto, a Japanese native, previously worked at NHK Cosmomedia as a program director. Now President of Coyote Sun Production in Chicago, she is also a Special Projects Coordinator at the Chiago International Film Festival.
Kono, also from Japan, is the founder of a record company called Mar Creation, Inc. in New York.
According to CJFC’s official comment, this year’s online screenings attracted viewers from 20 states across the country, amassing over 700 views. It is “amazing” for a fledgling film festival of this scale, the comment says.
The 14 featured films this year were selected based on the theme of “love,” according to CJFC. Love is essential for human existence, and yet we live in a bleak landscape of a prolonged pandemic and unending destruction in Ukraine. The selected films “convey through cinema the love that is indispensable to us human beings, no matter what form it takes.”
Thanks to increased COVID-19 vaccinations and the introduction of therapeutic treatments, this year’s festival featured the first theatrical screenings, making Sakamoto’s dream of hosting in-theater screenings come true.
Photo: Japanese Style | Courtesy of Japanese Style Movie Partners
The first of the three in-theater screenings took place on the opening day of May 21 at the Logan Theatre in Chicago, introducing Hidenobu Abera’s Japanese Style. Premiered in Chicago before its release in Japan, Japanese Style tells a story about two strangers who ended up sharing a tuk-tuk to Yokohama. As their attraction to each other grow, their secrets slowly come to light. Kaito Yoshimura and Rina Takeda star the film.
On May 24, an independent film titled truth: 1 Night, 1 Room, 3 Bitches was presented at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi, the film is about the three women who gathered for the funeral of a man they loved. Surprised by the presence of their rivals, the women bare their feminine instincts and desires in the pursuit of truth (visit the official site at: https://truth-film-japan.com).
Following the screening, Tsutsumi appeared via Zoom for a Q&A session and answered questions from the audience. His 50th work, truth is Tsutsumi’s first independent film. For his extensive contributions to Japanese cinema, CJFC presented him with a distinguished service award.
Photo: Truth | Courtesy of Keiko Harada
As the Festival’s closing presentation, The Seppuku Pistols was screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center on May 29.
The documentary directed by Yo Umezaki is a record of a six-year journey of a Japanese drum group that carries on traditions from 150 years ago.
Appearing in unexpected places and moments, the guerrilla-style group called The Seppuku Pistols performs throughout Japan before making it all the way to New York City. Umezaki, who fell in love with the group, followed its journey and filmed it into a 111-minute documentary road movie.
Photo: Seppuku Pistols in Times Square, New York | Courtesy of Seppuku Pistols and Yo Umezaki
The film won CJFC’s 2022 Audience Award with the highest audience votes (for the official YouTube video, visit You Tube).
Six members of the group, led by the leader Danko Iida, made a surprise appearance at the theater following the screening. Clad in old Japanese peasant kimonos, the group performed there using traditional Japanese instruments. They had just arrived at the O’Hare Airport three hours previously in the same look. It reflects the group’s yearning for the lost tradition and culture of the Edo period, as well as its populist inclination. The old peasant look is the group’s regular attire for everyday life. They work and perform dressed like Edo peasants.
The group appeared in multiple concerts in New York in 2019. In Chicago this year, they performed at the Daley Plaza and in front of Wrigley Field, after appearing at the Siskel Film Center.
Interview with Danko Iida
Q: Where did the name “Seppuku Pistols” come from? How did you come up with the idea of going back to the Edo tradition?
Iida: I was an avid fan of the punk rock band Sex Pistols – a London band formed around 1976. I was wandering around London then, and wondered why we don’t have anything native in Japan that young people can go wild about.
I came home to Japan and did some research. And I found out that there were many things [in the form of indigenous performing art] in Japan until about 150 years ago, during the Edo period up to the early Meiji era. But after that, people began restricting anything that’s too wild, funny or erotic. Those things were mostly buried or forgotten.
It was my realization that we had something that has roots in ourselves. It was three or four years before the great earthquake [in 2011]. At the end of my search, I arrived at traditional instruments like the taiko [drum] and shamisen.
I always thought that the traditional instruments wouldn’t be for everybody. Then the earthquake hit, and the [Fukushima] nuclear disaster. In the middle of confusion and chaos, I realized that I could play traditional instruments there – you don’t need [electric] power to play them. So, the four of us – me and my three friends - went to Fukushima and performed taiko drumming to get rid of radiation contamination.
The taiko was originally used in Japan to purge evil or demon. We thought it would fit to take it to Fukushima.
It was when I was seeking a direction in my life, and this [Fukushima experience] was a determining moment for me to take up Japanese traditional instruments.
Q: Did you play any instruments?
Iida: No, I was a singer. So I took up the kane [Japanese hand bell] because I like the Awa Odori [the folk dance in Tokushima, in which the kane is played by the dancers].
Our drummer became the taiko player, the guitarists switched their electric guitars to shamisen. It was a four-member band at the start.
Once we performed live, people began showing up saying they would like to join us. Now we have about 25 members.
Q: What did you find most important among the things you have re-discovered, in the process of going back to the Edo period before Japan’s modernization?
Iida: The life of a regular peasant back in those days was not controlled by money. Financial gains didn’t dictate their lives.
They didn’t have money. But for fun, all they had to do was to just jump into action. Dance, festival, singing, playing – those things were in their everyday life.
Today we are encouraged to work hard for money. And the busier we get, the more stressed out we become. We can make it simpler and be like peasants in the Edo period, where you didn’t have to be a musician to play music.
I still feel such openness when I visit rural places in Japan to perform at various local festivals. But it’s not so visible to the general public, so I hope we can make it known through our rather extreme form of expression.
Q: Can you make ends meet performing as such a large group? We hear that you perform even if you don’t get paid.
Iida: It’s very difficult. Around the time of the great earthquake, we were traveling and performing just for the need of the people who invited us. Like when people wanted us to help boost the morale of their village, or to cheer up a grandma who had just lost her husband and become bedridden.
We are performing simply because we like the way peasants lived in the bygone days, where [playing] music was part of their lives. And we want to emulate it. You can’t make a living by performance alone.
Even when we get paid, the money is usually gone after paying for the travel expense for the 20 of us, for instance. It sometimes covers only half of the expense.
We are here today to support Mr. Umezaki and his film.
Q: Do all of the Seppuku Pistols members have their own jobs and places to live?
Iida: Yes. We all live separately across Japan. Some are in the Kanto area, others in Kyushu, Tohoku, and even on the Sado Island. We get together to perform, each time with different members depending on where we perform. Usually around 10 of us or more. We all have different jobs – some are in farming, others are craftsmen.
Q: In a live performance in New York, you said “Greetings from the returning Black Ships.”
Iida: The Black Ships incident [the 1853 visit of Commodore Perry and his U.S. fleet of the “Black Ships” to Japan that opened up the country to the world] was a symbolic incident in the course of Japan’s modernization. Since the Meiji Restoration [that followed the incident], I feel that Japan didn’t take time to stop and think what kind of a nation it wanted to become. We should have taken time to appreciate and preserve what great things we used to have.
Q: The visual on your website and YouTube includes Japanese letters written in a unique form. Did you write them?
Iida: I wrote some of them; the rest is a collage of writings I found in old Japanese archives. Old writings are so beautiful. I want to revive and connect them with today’s world.
Q: Thank you very much.
Photo: Yo Umezaki in Chicago | Yoshiko Urayama
Interview with Yo Umezaki
Q: You are a chief producer at a large TV station. What made you decide to film the Seppuku Pistols into a documentary?
Umezaki: I decided to do it when I first caught sight of them. I was just fascinated.
It was an event in 2016 where the Pistols and a bonsai artist competed in artistic presentation on an island in the Seto Inland Sea. A boat appeared on the sea, carrying the performing Pistols with taiko drums, bells, shamisen and other instruments. It was so dramatic. I thought they were the Setouchi pirates of the olden days coming back to life. I was thunderstruck.
So I started filming them by myself. I kept wondering why I got tearful every time I filmed their performance. Where does this emotional reaction come from?
With their music, everybody – regardless of nationality, gender, or generation – starts dancing, smiling. Then I thought maybe the beat of the taiko rhythm has something that’s connected to our heartbeat, that synchronizes with every beat of our heart. They say that the first music we hear in our mother’s womb is the mother’s heartbeat.
So, I think we might dance to the rhythm of the taiko because we are taken back to the times of our very beginning.
Q: You must have accumulated an enormous amount of footage since 2016. How did you edit them into a film?
Umezaki: I continued filming after the COVID-19 pandemic began. But I didn’t want to use the footage from that period.
The world may have changed drastically after COVID-19 hit, but we had times when we danced to the taiko rhythm. Remember those days. Remember what you used to look like. That’s the message I wanted to convey.
The main characters of this film are not just the Seppuku Pistols, but also the people dancing to their music. They are smiling a really good smile in the film. That’s their true nature as human beings. That’s what I wanted to say.
While we hear a lot of talks about building walls to separate us from each other, it feels most essential for human connection to have performers like the Seppuku Pistols – no words are needed, and we can become one through their music.
No words can explain it. Even visual images have limits. But still, I would be happy if my film reminds people of the feelings that words can’t express.
Q: Thank you very much.
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The films streamed online:
1. Actress Montage (director: Monzo Minakuchi)
2. Ainu – Indigenous People of Japan (director: Naomi Mizoguchi)
3. Arano (director: Tomofumi Hasegawa)
4. Before the Rainbow Falls (director: Koji Uehara)
5. Howling (director: Sheikh M. Haris)
6. My House (director: Yukihiko Tsutsumi)
7. Osaka Bros (director: Yudai Uenishi)
8. Parallel (director: Daiki Tanaka)
9. Shinjuku Tiger (director: Yoshinori Sato)
10. The Takatsu River (director: Yoshinari Nishikori)
11. The World of You (director: Akihiko Shiota)