A scene from "Fujiko." (Courtesy FEFF)
An hour after Taichi Kimura claimed the main Golden Mulberry audience award at this year's 28th Far East Film Festival in Udine, Italy, the Japanese filmmaker was still shaking his head in disbelief. Film fans at Europe's largest annual presentation of commercial Asian cinema were blown away by the filmmaker's second feature, Fujiko, and they voted accordingly, picking the production out from a selection this year that featured 75 films.
For his part, Kimura could hardly believe what he had just experienced. "It's mad," he said, backstage in Udine. "This is just a story about my mum."
Fujiko is a deeply personal project that marks a significant shift from Kimura's previous career producing commercials and music videos, as well as from his rather darker previous feature, Afterglows (2023), which centered around a taxi driver dealing with his wife's suicide.
After years of creating work for brands and clients, Kimura felt compelled to make something for himself. "I've been doing a lot of commercials and music videos," he said, speaking on the sidelines of FEFF. "But I felt I was always doing something for a product or someone else's glory. Then I realized I need to do some work that is really meaningful to me and something to be remembered by."
A Mother's Story
That meaning has been found in Fujiko, a film based on the life of the filmmaker's mother, and starring Yuki Katayama in the lead role. Separated from her husband soon after having a child, the protagonist Fujiko had to provide for herself while taking care of her infant child in the Shizuoka of the 1970s and 80s. The story that follows is marked by hardship, drawn from experiences the director had carried with him since childhood.
Even Kimura himself admitted that he's still fascinated by how extraordinary the story is. His mother somehow survived poverty, abandonment, abusive relatives, and even robbery. "It felt really surreal and I didn't even think this was a real story," he said.
Kimura quickly realized the uniqueness of her life's trajectory and how the world might benefit from witnessing it. "Over the years, I thought this is the kind of story I should be telling people if I became a film director," he explained. "This is the kind of project that I've been thinking about for years and years. During production, she also helped me out, so it's a great privilege, really."
From Memory to Film
Although featuring some seemingly unbelievable situations, the film feels natural, and that comes down to the real-world stories Kimura listened to while writing the script. Even his locations correspond to where the actual events took place, adding again to the sense of reality.
"I've been doing a lot of research through my relatives rather than newspapers," he said. "It's important because this is the kind of story that doesn't come out in the media. I went to the actual people in the story to hear their part in it all. The soba restaurant in the film is the actual location and the sisters' characters are still alive to tell the story."
On its debut in Udine, Fujiko reduced many in the audience to tears but delivered some surprising laughs as well. Kimura revealed that this idiosyncratic mix of hardship and humor was always the intention.
"When I was talking to my mother, she told me not to make her story dark or sad, because her life's not miserable and I don't want people to think she's suffering," said the filmmaker. "I grew up in England, where you've got to laugh at everything. Even though it's the darkest time, you've always got the power of comedy on your side."
Music as Identity
Music permeates almost every scene in Fujiko, and the director said this reflects his own life journey as much as his mother's. "I've lived in London for 26 years, so music is a big part of culture for me," he explained.
"A lot of Japanese filmmakers think there's got to be a lot of silence and quietness in their films, but I wanted to bring something like what I have experienced in London. When I started making this film, I also wanted to use foreign music for [scenes of] Japan, because back then, it was a massive movement and a lot of people were listening to foreign music, especially rock music."
He continued, "On top of that, my mother is a huge fan of artists like Jimi Hendrix, Golden Earring, and T. Rex, and I wanted to use music that resembles that. Within the film, Fujiko is fighting against society, which is a very rock and roll attitude."
A Better Japan
Fujiko also digs deeply into Japanese society as it was in the 1980s and as it is today. By talking to many people about the 1980s, the filmmaker was able to capture a broader picture of what women were going through at the time. While the audience was left in no doubt about how difficult it was for women to be independent back then, Kimura said that a lot has changed.
"But there's a lot of it that still needs to be improved," says the filmmaker. "In the film, Fujiko cannot find a kindergarten for her child. The number of kindergartens has increased since then, but it's still not enough, which is a huge problem. But whether things have changed or not is a question for the audience to answer. More importantly, the question I want to leave them with is, can we make an even better Japan?"
Author: Alex Petrescu
Alex Petrescu attended the 28th Far East Film Festival as part of the FEFF Campus for aspiring critics, writers, and film industry professionals.
