Katsuya Tomita
Writing
Biography
After graduating from high school, he saved money to make films by working as a construction worker and a truck driver, using his childhood friends as actors. For three years, using an 8mm camera, he spent his weekends making his first film, Above the Clouds, which was released independently in 2003. With the 1,500,000 yen he won from an award for this film, together with Toranosuke Aizawa he wrote Off Highway 20 (2007), which was shot using 16mm film. In 2008, he decided to make Saudade with the help of his childhood friends once again, basing the story in his hometown of Kofu, a city to which many Japanese-Brazilians have moved back from Brazil. Saudade was funded with help from the citizens of Kofu; it took a year and half to film, and was finished in 2011. Tomita submitted this film to international film festivals; it was invited to the Locarno International Film Festival and won the Golden Montgolfière Award at the Festival des 3 Continents in France. The film was invited to many other festivals, including four that organised retrospectives of Tomita’s work, notably the Jeonju International Film Festival. In Japan, the film was viewed by 30,000 people, making it a box office hit. In 2012, Tomita started going back and forth between Bangkok and Tokyo in preparation for his next film, Bangkok Nites.
Known For
Bangkok, 2015. Ozawa, a Japanese man who had nowhere to go, meets Luck, a woman has reached the height of her glory on Thaniya Street, a place that flourishes by servicing only Japanese men. Through a trip to trace the scars of colonialism, they look for paradise that we had lost.
Bangkok Nites
Hisashi was once a member of a motorcycle gang. Now he plays pachinko everyday with his live-in girlfriend, Junko. He has a habit of "huffing" paint thinner. His debts accumulate every day. Hisashi's old friend from the gang, Ozawa is a loan shark. He persuades Hisashi to join his easy-money-making.
Off Highway 20
To address the social crisis, Chiken - a buddhist monk - throws himself into various tasks such as a suicide helpline, in his temple in Yamanashi. In Fukushima, his old mate Ryûgyô - whose temple was wrecked by the tsunami - lives in a portacabin and works on construction sites.
Tenzo
Kin-chan is a struggling actor in his forties who hasn't quite made it big yet. He's married with children, but his relationship with his family seems strained. To earn some pocket money, he takes on a dubious photo shoot, where the photographer tells him about the wonders of Thailand. He grabs the surprisingly large sum of money and lands in Bangkok with only the clothes on his back. Thailand is so captivating that it makes him forget his life in Japan. After spending a fun night with May, a street girl, he ends up traveling to Chiang Rai with May and her friend Fong. A Japanese man who barely speaks the language and two women, each with their own agendas, set off on their journey north.
Chiang Rai Girl
An fantastic anthology made by Katsuya Tomita, Masanori Tominaga and Tetsuya Mariko for the 4th Okinawa International Movie Festival in 2012.
同じ星の下、それぞれの夜
Seiji works on construction sites. He sympathizes with Hosaka just back from Thailand. Together, they spend their evenings in bars with Thai girls. On a construction site, they meet Takeru, a member of the hip-hop collective of the city.
Saudade
In some lonely countryside, or more precisely, in the smaller district where the word “community” still fits perfectly, there is an old temple with a red rusty roof. The temple is called Kôun’in whose roof has a tale passed down from ancient times. The tale is based on the myth of dragon god: Once upon a time at a brumous crack of dawn, all kinds of snakes magically flocked to a waterfall. As soon as they merged into a single huge serpent, it started to fly up heavenward. But when it incarnadined his body with the red color of the roof, it transformed itself into a rising dragon.
Above the Clouds
No description available.