Film Screening “The Last Passenger”, Memorial Film of the 03/11
Victims’ Vibrations Come Back into Existence
A poster of The Last Passenger directed by Takashi Horie
A film screening of The Last Passenger was held at the Chicago Filmmakers on September 14, and its director Takashi Horie talked about the film. A full house of 85 audiences recalled the disaster, which happened on March 11, 2011, and thought about the minds of affected people both survived and dead.
Director Horie made the film to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Great Earthquake and Tsunami in the Tohoku Area, especially, around the City of Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture where Horie was born.
The event was organized by the Chicago Japanese Film Collective (CJFC) founded by Yuki Sakamoto and Hiroshi Kono, and hosting film screenings related to the disaster is one of the CJFC’s missions to support the resilience of the Tohoku area. All of the ticket sales will be donated to support the students who are in the directly affected areas and need aid for attending extra-curricular activities or tutoring schools to take the entrance exams for high schools and colleges.
About The Last Passenger
The film, The Last Passenger, is not a documentary, suspense, or horror film, but a human drama, which describes a family of father and teenage daughter who are affected by the 03/11 disaster in Miyagi.
The daughter appreciates her father, who gives her unconditioned caring and love, but she cannot help talking back to her father. The father always thinks of his daughter, but sometimes raises his voice at her bad behavior.
The daughter thinks that she will apologize to her father tomorrow, and the father wants to tell her, “My bad,” tomorrow, but what will happen to them if their tomorrow is washed away by the 03/11 tsunami?
Synopsis
Ten years after the 03/11 disaster, taxi driver Endo is waiting for passengers at a small station near Sendai City and he especially expects his lost-contact daughter to appear from the station. His colleague talks to him about a rumor that a young woman asks a driver to take her to Hama-machi, but she disappears when you arrive there.
Endo finds a young woman on a street and gives her a ride, and then the story goes on where you never have imagined. Its trailer is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYCIzLa2T9c.
Q&A Session with Director Takashi Horie
After a 55-minute screening, a Q&A session with Director Takashi Horie was held. It was moderated by Wakana Shibusa, former newscaster of the Higashi Nippon Broadcasting (KHB) in Sendai and current resident of Chicago.
From left: Hiroshi Kono, Director Takashi Horie, and Moderator Wakana Shibusa
Q: Could you tell us the reason why you made this film?
Horie: When 03/11 happened, I lived in New York City. I was shocked when I saw a powerful, huge tsunami hitting my hometown, and 200 bodies were found there. Fortunately, my parents and sister were safe.
Soon after that, I started fundraising for my hometown and Miyagi Prefecture and continued doing it for five years. I think I had a guilty feeling because I wasn’t there when it happened and I couldn’t do anything to help victims directly.
However, people’s attention to the disaster was fading away in the public after five years from 03/11 because many other natural disasters happened in Japan. But I couldn’t forget about the disaster as if nothing happened in my hometown. I had to do something. And then I realized that I was a filmmaker, and it was my job to do that.
I began writing a story, but I thought whatever I wrote was fake because I didn’t have direct experience, didn’t witness the disaster scenes and suffering people, and I even doubted if I had a right to write a story.
So, I started to talk with the people in my hometown and participated in the sixth commemorative ceremony of 03/11. At the ceremony, a woman around 20 years old was next to me, and she said she was deeply hurt by the disaster and felt bitter when she saw everybody was doing charity activities as a daily life so she was unable to attend the yearly commemorative ceremony.
I had been calling for people’s support for my hometown and Miyagi, and the young woman had me realize that the disaster damaged people differently. When I think I’m doing a good thing, but people perceive it differently. So I came to realize that I could make a film from that standpoint.
Q: You used all the casts and crew from Miyagi for your film.
Horie: Yes. I wanted the cast and crew who really cared about Miyagi.
Director Takashi Horie
Karen Iwata, who plays the role of the daughter Mizuki, was born in Sendai and was a former member of AKB48.
Actor Norimasa Fuke, who takes the role of Mizuki’s father, was not a Miyagi native, but he played his role very seriously with his passion. He had a role in the TV drama Oshin.
There were so many friends who helped me with film shooting. Some of them were friends since we had been elementary school students, and some were high school and college students from New York. They are my life-long friends and my treasures.
I’ve been close to Hiroshi Kono here with me, who has a production firm in New York, so he helped screen The Last Passenger in New York, Miyagi, Tokyo, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, and more.
Kono: We had a screening at KHB in Sendai, and President of KHB informed me Wakana Shibusa was a news anchor at KHB from 2013 to 2016. So we made a connection with Wakana, and she is here today.
Q: Could you tell us about the episodes during the film shooting?
Horie: All the scenes were shocking to me except the apartment and the taxi scenes.
Arahama, a beach town, where 200 people were killed by the earthquakes and tsunami, was my swimming and cycling place with my friends. We enjoyed eating cold sweets and snacks, and it was a very popular beach. But everything was washed away, and all of my childhood memories were erased. I wanted to repair my lost memories. That is why I chose Arahama as a shooting location. Of course, there were places where more people died.
Q: In the film, you show egg-rice balls. What does the rice ball symbolize in the movie?
Horie: I wanted to make connections with my hometown as much as possible. Actually, delicious rice and nori seaweed are specialties in my hometown.
Bentenya helps deliver egg-rice balls
The recipe for the egg-rice ball is my mother’s. She always encouraged me and gave me 100% support on any occasion, but she passed away two years ago.
All of my family members helped me to make this film, but my mother was no longer there, so I wanted to include her in this film as a form of rice ball.
Today, all of the audience can taste an egg-rice ball. Enjoy a delicious egg onigiri, my soul food!
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
The story of The Last Passenger is very well organized with sensitive attention to every corner of the story. Director Horie created a world like the middle of reality and mirage, but every part of the story is consistent and connected to each other. Shimpo asked the Director how he developed the story.
Horie: There are so many ghost stories in the disaster-hit areas, and those are published in newspapers and books. I was interested in those stories and read them, but there was no such story as The Last Passenger.
It is not a real story, but I didn’t want to make it an entertainment film with a surprise ending because I already understood the deep state of the minds of the damaged people due to the disaster. I tried to create a story in the universal world with the reality of the disaster, so I could make rapport with the people in the world to remind them of what happened on 03/11.
Shimpo: If you were in the story, who you want to see?
Horie: It’s my mother, you know.
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
Kayo Hasekura was among the audience. She was born in Sendai, so she eagerly came to the screening. She talked with Director Horie, and they both found that they had graduated from the same high school, Sendai Minami High School.
Shimpo: You said you can find where the scene was shot. Could you tell us about it?
Hasekura: Oh, when I saw the first scene, I got it. It’s Arahama!
Shimpo: What did you feel about The Last Passenger?
Hasekura: I totally agree with what the Director said. Everything he said was exactly as it was.
For example, I was living in Yokohama at that time and heard that TV news was saying the name of the town, Arahama. The town is close to the downtown of Sendai, so you cannot imagine tsunami coming to the area. So, I wondered why it was coming to Arahama, and then I touched the reality that 200 people died there.
Shimpo: Do you think the Director could bring the reality of the minds of the people affected by 03/11?
Hasekura: Yes, he did. Thus, every scene and what he was talking about was exactly the same as what I thought at that time.
Shimpo: Thank you very much.
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
Director Horie’s Profile:
Takashi HORIE is a New York-based independent filmmaker who was born in Sendai, Miyagi. Horie has been working as a director/cinematographer/editor for numerous music videos and promotional videos in the U.S., and received multiple international video awards. His first short film, “Ordinary Days” was nominated and premiered at the Artemis Film Festival in April 2017, and screened at the New Hope Film Festival in July 2017. His new film, “The Last Passenger” was nominated for the Montreal Independent Film Festival, and won the Best Independent Film Award at the San Diego Art Film Festivals. Now he has been working on an adventurous road movie featuring Japanese street performing girls, Bentenya on Route 66.
Wakana Shibusa’s Profile:
Former Newscaster
Wakana Shibusa
Wakana Shibusa currently resides in Chicago and belongs to the Nichien-Production as a newscaster and reporter. She emceed at the 2023 New Year’s Party held by the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Chicago.
After graduated from college, she worked for Higashi Nippon Broadcasting as a news anchor from 2013 to 2016 for three and a half years, and then she returned to Tokyo where she was born. She worked as a newscaster at the BS channel WOWOW for five years mainly in the sport field.
In Chicago, she started to write a series of columns for an online magazine in Japan and wishes to send the charm of Chicago to Japan.
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
U.S.-Japan Cultural Film Project
Chin-don Girls Bentenya Marches Route 66
Chin-don Girls “Bentenya”
Director Takashi Horie and Hiroshi Kono, President of the Mar Creation and Producer have been working on the U.S.-Japan Cultural Film Project: Bentenya x Route 66. It is an adventurous road movie featuring Japanese Chin-don Girls, Bentenya, from Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan. The Bentenya, a street performing troop, will meet people, introduce Japanese culture, and perform both Japanese and American music as a new way of nurturing 150 years of Chin-don culture while they are traveling on the historic Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica in California.
The project started on September 13, and the Bentenya appeared in the film screening event and introduced their Chin-don music and performance. Their film shooting on Route 66 continued until September 30 and then will move back to Aichi to work on the rest of the project. It will be completed by May 2024, and the road movie will be presented to film festivals, Route 66 Screening Tour, 2024 Route 66 Road Fest, and screening events in Japan.
After a Q&A session, all the participants get together for a commemorative photo.
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
Movie Theatre “Chicago Filmmakers”
The Chicago Filmmakers offers its theatre space to local filmmakers including experimental filmmakers as a venue for their screening activities. It also offers a whole range of processes for developing and establishing filmmakers to build a film community. The theatre accommodates 85 people and offers equipment needed for screening.
The building of the Chicago Filmmakers was an old firehouse, and its staff and contributing people got together to purchase it from the City of Chicago and then completely remodeled the building.
The Filmmakers has become a venue for many programs such as International Film Festival and Onion City Experimental Film Festival to name a few. It also offers classes for filmmaking, directing, cinematography, documentary, screenwriting, and more.
For more information, visit https://chicagofilmmakers.org/.