Blessed
(“Blessed—Shukufuku—”)- Director: TAKASHI Toshiko
2001 Japanese Subtitled in English Color Video 78 min
Production Company: Scarlet
Producer: FUJIOKA Asako
Photography: TAKASHI Toshiko
Editing: TAKASHI Toshiko
Music:
Sound:International Sales: FUJIOKA Asako
1-18-10 Kamisaginomiya, Nakano-ku, Tokyo JAPAN
Phone: 81-3-3998-7259
Fax: 81-3-3998-7250
E-mail: scarlet@zae.att.ne.jp
[Festivals and prizes] Yamagata Int’l Documentary Film Festival 2001, Visions du Reel 2002 (Special Mention), Seoul International Women’s Film Festival, and others
[Synopsis] Filmmaker’s quiet journey to her past asserts her sexuality and empowers her lifestyle.
Toshiko spent ten years of her childhood in a lower-income Osaka neighborhood of tiny alleys. When she visits her old home, a wooden shack, after 30 years, she finds two women over 70, still living there together just as they did all those years ago. Toshiko, though shaken, manages to film her visit. Toshiko’s lover Sakura performs in a strip club. In between shows, she decides to look for the apartment. But the building is now deserted. Where are the two old women? Toshiko and Sakura’s intertwining emotions, the old women’s history, the nostalgic alleys, the neon lights of the theater, the passing scenery from the bullet train window... Longing and desire are packed in this personal film.
| TAKASHI Toshiko
Born in Osaka, 1952. Assistant Director of Fukuda Katsuhiko’s Higashi-Kurume, a Living Town in 1990. Director and initiator of the Tokyo International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in 1992 and 1993. Film and music critic for magazines. Made short documentaries ode I and Oishi Apartments, Nishi-Tengachaya after working as cinematographer on some independent works. Blessed is her first feature length film. |
• TAKASHI Toshiko | Oishi Apartments, Nishi-Tengachaya | Blessed |