[1999]

The White

(“Shiro—The White”)
Director: HIRANO Katsuyuki

1999 Japanese Subtitled in English Color 35mm 118 min

Production Company: V & R Planning Ltd.
Producer: ADACHI Kaoru, YASUOKA Takaharu
Photography: HIRANO Katsuyuki
Editing: ADACHI Kaoru
Music: KITANO Yuji and others
Sound: HIRANO Katsuyuki 		  International Sales: Yasuoka Films
5-32-6-502 Sendagaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151-0051 JAPAN
Phone: 81-3-3354-4792
Fax: 81-3-5367-6407
E-mail: YASUS@netlaputa.ne.jp

[Festivals and prizes] Yamagata IDFF ’99 (NETPAC Award), Berlin (Forum) ’00, Hong Kong ’00, Pusan ’00

[Synopsis] Porn director Hirano embarks on a solo filming expedition biking north in the biggest blizzard in years.
A man and his bicycle, ready to take an adventure 2,328 km to the northernmost tip of Japan. He films himself as he travels through mountains, over icy roads, sleeping in a tent 20 below zero. Three weeks into the journey, a severe stomach ache turns out to be appendicitis. He is hospitalized. Two weeks later, he leaves the hospital to resume his journey. The biggest snowstorm in years hits him. Frozen white, he cannot tell the roads and the fields apart. There are no cars. He is the only person in sight as the blizzard blows across the landscape. And all for the sake of making an exciting film...


HIRANO Katsuyuki

Born in Shizuoka, 1964. Aspiring cartoonist until the age of 18, when he began filmmaking. After being selected for the Pia Film Festival three years in a row, 1985 to 1987, he began to direct adult video in 1990. Yumika, the first Hokkaido-bike-trip film, had its theatrical debut in 1997. Encyclopedia of a Drifter, the second in the bike-trip series came out in 1998. The White, finished in 1999, concludes the three part bike-trip series.