Interview with Director Kota Nakano of "Retake" 🎤

Hello!
This is (Natsume) from the Osaka branch of the Movie Cheer Club.

The person I interviewed this time is Director Kota Nakano of "Retake," which will be screened at UPLINK Kyoto starting Friday, January 31st, at Theater Seven starting Saturday, February 1st, and at Motomachi Movie Theater starting Saturday, March 1st 🎤

During the summer vacation of their third year of high school, a group of friends is suddenly invited by that girl they are interested in to make a movie. Whether by chance or fate, they gather together and, through trial and error, shoot video and record audio, searching for the best final scene for themselves.

Friendships where "the usual place" is all you need to say, romantic feelings that make your mouth twist because you want to say them but can't, the difficult question of what you really want to do, the preciousness of creating something together, that sparkle you wished would never end, that time and those emotions mixed with both bitterness and sweetness! This is the ultimate youth movie, dedicated to the former youths who spent time that can only be called youth, and to the young people living in the present who are experiencing what can only be called youth!!
The surprise implied by the title "Retake" is vivid, and it is a work I definitely want you to see in a movie theater 🌟

I hope you will read this not only before watching the movie, but also after, so that you can immerse yourself in its world or visit the movie theater once again ☺️

(Interviewer: Natsume)

Cheer Club: I believe this film is deeply connected to your own experiences and career, Director. First, could you tell us about your current activities? What kind of organization is the NPO Shonan Citizen Media Network, for which you serve as representative?

Director Nakano: The organization's mission is to "connect people to people and people to their communities through video and media content." We hold workshops where children, students, and the general public can experience the production of video works. Rather than aiming to teach them skills so they can pursue a career in film, I want them to learn various things through the process of making videos and movies.

When making a documentary-style film, even if you can operate the camera alone, there is still the subject, society, and the world involved. When making a drama-style film, the participating children experience communication that is completely different from how they usually play, and because they have to create one thing together, various discussions inevitably arise. They discover new sides of each other, like "Oh, so that's how you act" or "That's how you see the world." They create by utilizing each other's various personalities, strengths, and things they are good at or like.

We sometimes hold these at schools, and sometimes we work with children who have difficulty attending school, giving them the experience of communicating with others and engaging with society.

※NPO Shonan Citizen Media Network Website ⬇️

Cheer Club: This film depicts five high school students making an independent film during summer vacation. What was the inspiration behind choosing this theme?

Director Nakano: I have been making videos and films since high school and college, and through that experience, I have always felt that while the quality of the work is important, the process itself—the interactions, communication, and even the failures involved in making a movie—is interesting. Based on that realization, I am still active in the organization I mentioned earlier. Actually, I hadn't made my own work for over 10 years after graduating from college; instead, I was having children and students make works. While that was fulfilling in some ways, I also felt a sense of something missing. I felt like, even though I'm in a position to teach, I wasn't really making anything myself...

At that time, I became a lecturer for a high school video expression class, and that's where I met Urara (who plays Yu in "Retake"). When I gave a final project assignment at the end of the class, Urara was trying to make a blockbuster and was going through trial and error even after graduation, and I was supporting and helping her while watching that process. Urara was already active in music and was a notable figure among her peers, but I didn't actually know that side of her. However, she was just as serious about film as another form of expression as she was about music. During the process, there was trouble, like her best friend who was helping as staff stopped coming, but I thought the way Urara and the others were making the movie was a movie in itself.

It's based on my own past experiences, and I've seen children making videos and movies, not just Urara and her friends. Seeing Urara and her friends making their movie, their seriousness made me think, "I have to shoot too!" and that led to the planning of this film.

※By the way, "The Forest Does Not Stop Singing," directed by Urara, is currently uploaded on YouTube to commemorate the release of "Retake" ⬇️

Cheer Club: The sight of the high school students going through trial and error in the film is impressive, and I felt that this movie itself, which has many young cast members, must have been made through trial and error as well. Are there any episodes from the production process that left an impression on you?

Director Nakano: Having watched Urara make movies, I wrote the script with her in mind, based on her way of speaking and things she might do, but basically, everyone is appearing as characters relatively close to themselves.

There is a scene in the script where Yu cries, but there is a behind-the-scenes story where Urara told me, "In this situation, I wouldn't cry, and I can't cry." We were talking in a park during a break in filming, and when Urara got on a table and said, "I don't want to cry!", a staff member saw that and said, "You're being very high and mighty," so Urara got down to the ground and said, "I don't want to cry!" again (laughs). It wasn't about physical height, though.

Also, the lake scene was scheduled to be finished in three days and two nights, but we couldn't do it, so we had to add another day of shooting. When we arrived at the lake that morning, there was a commercial film crew probably filming there. The moment we arrived, I thought (It's over...) (laughs). "Retake" is a film with the stubbornness of an independent movie, so I wondered if we would lose to a commercial film... They withdrew shortly after, so we were able to film, though.

Cheer Club: It's great that it's finished and now being released in theaters!

Cheer Club: I felt that the character designs and relationships of the five high school students who appear in the film form an exquisite pentagon. As you mentioned earlier, I think the personalities and relationships of the cast members themselves had an influence, but how were the five characters actually built?

Director Nakano: Aleina (Takano), who plays Alisa, is actually a childhood friend of Rei's. In fact, she was the one who came in as a replacement for a girl who stopped showing up halfway through Rei's film. She actually handled the microphone for us back then, too.

Nako (Ohara), who plays Umi, was also a friend from the vocational school Rei attended after graduating high school. At a time when she was wondering whether to quit vocational school or not... and thinking about what to do next, Rei cast her, just like in the film.

Chiba (Ryusei), who plays Jiro, was a senior of mine at Tokyo Zokei University, where I graduated from. I sent the script to someone who was an assistant professor at the time I was conceptualizing the film and asked if there was anyone who seemed like a Jiro, and he introduced me to Chiba, saying he might be good. He had also been at Zokei University for a year, and after thinking about various things, he was at a point where he had quit university and was wondering what to do. I went to meet him in person, and I thought he was great.

Yuta Muto, who plays Kei, was the only one we held an open audition for. Out of about 30 applicants in the end, Muto was the first one to apply, and I just had a gut feeling. I went to meet him with Rei to see how the two of them interacted. I thought his eyes were great, and I asked him to join right there on the spot.

Only Muto had acting experience; the others were not actors. It seems Chiba had been filming and appearing in movies since high school, but he wasn't aiming to be an actor. In the film, the boys' group and the girls' group meet for the first time, and it really felt like that. I think there is a documentary-like aspect to how they got used to each other while we were actually filming. We even fed back the way everyone acted and the conversations they had when we went on location scouting into the script.

Cheer Club: I also thought Muto-san's eyes were wonderful! The way he wouldn't say anything, his mouth would move a little as if he were about to speak but he wouldn't, yet his eyes spoke volumes—that was great!

Cheer Club: I was impressed by the scene where the five of them are discussing what kind of ending would be good, centered around Yu, who says he is still unsure about the last scene. Alisa, Jiro, and Umi all gave different opinions, and Kei didn't say anything in the end, did he? I thought the atmosphere where it's okay to have different opinions, it's okay not to say anything, and it's okay for someone not to speak was great. In times like that, people tend to say, "Say something!", but I found the atmosphere of the five of them, where it's acceptable to just be there without speaking, to be very comfortable.

I personally felt that your know-how and experience as a director who also does video production with children might be put to use here, but what do you think?

Director Nakano: In workshops, for example, rather than teaching, I try to give them tasks and watch over them as much as possible, and only give them a push when they are at a loss.

I don't know if this connects to what we were just talking about, but when I was at Zokei University, my teacher was director Nobuhiro Suwa. I remember reading a piece he wrote about his first commercial film, "2/Duo" (1997), where he wrote that rather than being the director and author himself, he made the work while having many discussions with the staff and cast, and that "the relationship between me, the staff, and the cast, and the place itself, is the author." I also remember another thing Suwa-san said: "Filmmaking is about affirming the person as they are."

Cheer Club: I just thought that "Retake" is a film that lives up to those words!

Cheer Club: The way this film is perceived changes completely from the moment Kei says "Cut!" and stops the filming, doesn't it? I think the way it is "retaken" as if searching for the last scene, and the actual last scene itself, will be interpreted differently by each viewer, but what kind of wishes do you, as the director, have for it?

Director Nakano: When we were all making films in our student days, it was so much fun—it was a moratorium-like time, and I wished it would last forever. In the film, they repeat the same scene over and over, but the day is coming to an end. My image was that the film camera is spinning around chasing time, but it can never catch up. I wanted to express that feeling of wanting to stay there forever, wanting to repeat it, but time inevitably passes. That sense of spinning your wheels, that feeling that it's sad but you can't stop time.

Cheer Club: After watching this film, I felt that the sight of five disparate people coming together to create something is precious. In reality, I think the majority of people want to do something but cannot take the first step. What would you like to say to such young people, Director?

Director Nakano: I myself didn't take the step to make my own work for over 10 years after graduating from university... It's difficult to say what to tell them, but I want to say, 'Go watch Retake!'

Cheer Club: Indeed! That is the best thing.

Cheer Club: You mentioned that you have been producing videos and films since your student days. Are there any formative experiences or films that influenced you? Also, I would like to hear more about your experiences so far!

Director Nakano: Since I liked sci-fi and tokusatsu (special effects) from elementary school, as I dabbled in those, I learned about Tarkovsky through watching 'Solaris' (1972), and about Kubrick when my uncle showed me '2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968). From around junior high school, I started going to video rental stores and learned that there were auteur films, like Tarkovsky's.

In junior high, I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I wasn't in any clubs, but when I entered high school, I decided I would do video, so I enrolled in a high school with a broadcasting club that had all the equipment. Everyone else was active because they wanted to do broadcasting or TV programs, but I wanted to make films, and the first one I made was a 6-minute film called 'Mijinko Pinpin' (Daphnia Pinpin). It seems the manga artist Tama-kichi Sakura named floaters in the eye that way, so I made a film based on that. The moment the film starts, a high school boy who is about to commit suicide appears, but when he goes to the school rooftop and looks up at the sky, he sees the daphnia. I designed a daphnia character, composited the animation, and the high school boy thinks, 'This thing is inside my eye, so I can't die!' and gives up on suicide. I had help from friends at the time and juniors in the broadcasting club, but I made it relatively alone. It didn't get into the N-Con (NHK Cup National High School Broadcasting Contest), but it was selected for an Excellence Award at the Tokyo Video Festival, which Victor was still running at the time, and that gave me confidence.

In my first year of university, I was a bit full of myself, thinking, 'I've already won an award' (laughs). At the time, there was a girl who, just like Yu in 'Retake', said, 'I'm the director, so I'll do it!' When I talked to her, we got along quite well and our directions for what we wanted to create were aligned. While we were advancing the project together, I fell in love with her, confessed my feelings while we were making the film, and was rejected. Because of that, I caused trouble for the people involved in the film, and she gradually lost her motivation for the film, so the project itself fell through. After that, I was depressed for a while, rode my mom-chari (city bike) from Kanagawa, where I lived, to Tomakomai in Hokkaido, and even filmed with an 8mm camera along the way. I felt like I wouldn't arrive anywhere even if I went to the end of Hokkaido.

Later at university, when there was an assignment to write a screenplay in a group and make a film, I hadn't made up my mind yet and was wondering what to do, but there was a classmate who, like me, liked tokusatsu but would only watch and not make them, so we all united and started moving to make him create a tokusatsu film. We had him create a draft of the screenplay, everyone contributed ideas to it, and we made a film with a pretty decent life-sized hero. As I mentioned earlier, the time we spent making it was so much fun that I wished it would last forever. Usually, a film has a pyramid structure where the director is at the top and the staff and cast move to realize the director's image, but at that time, everyone moved in a circle with him at the center. The hero in the film is called 'Sai-Diver,' and the director's name for the film was also credited as 'Sai-Divers,' with everyone's name on it.

After that, when I was making my graduation project, I tried to make a work that would re-enact the moratorium time of hanging out and goofing off, despite having graduation projects and job hunting, with the friends I made the hero film with. However, at that time, I was so much in the middle of it that I didn't know how to end the film, so I graduated once it was finished halfway. After graduating, I felt I had to finish it, but everyone had really drifted apart. So I took a documentary approach, going to where everyone was and filming their current situation.

I also went to visit and interview one of them, a friend who had become a shut-in and repeated a year, and a year later, when that friend was making his graduation project, I became his cameraman, and we made a work where he re-enacted the year he was a shut-in, with a leap into fiction at the end. I think that making that work became a trigger for him to move forward in life, and since it was well-received, it led to his confidence.

Returning to the beginning of the story, I think that making films leads to connecting with people, moving your own life forward, and re-examining it, and that in itself can lead to education and welfare.

The Shonan Citizen Media Network I am in now existed before I joined, but just before I joined, a project started in collaboration with Kanagawa Prefecture to conduct workshops for truant children attending free spaces, with the idea that they could connect with society and communicate with someone through that experience, and I became involved as an instructor as soon as I joined. It was a job that directly connected to what I had been doing, so although there are difficult times, I am enjoying it.

Cheer Club: I was able to hear valuable stories that will help me understand 'Retake'...! Thank you very much.

Cheer Club: Finally, please give a message to the customers who will watch 'Retake' in the Keihanshin area!

Director Nakano: I would really like young people who are currently living their youth to come and see it, and I think it will also resonate with those who once lived their youth and were creating something, not limited to film. I want people of various ages to see it, and for fans of Cho-Q-May, it is a must-see, so please don't miss it!

Also, I think this film has an impact that can only be experienced by watching it in a movie theater, so I hope you will watch it in the space of a movie theater.

~Work Information~
"Retake"

Rei (Cho-Q-May), Yuta Muto, Aleina Takano, Nako Ohara, Ryusei Chiba

Director/Screenplay/Cinematography/Editing: Kota Nakano
Cinematography: Shuhei Yanagida, Sound Recording: Ryo Iizuka, Kaori Tosa, Hana Shoji, Yuki Ishii, Lighting: Naofumi Kanai
Music: Renpi (Cho-Q-May)
Theme Song: Cho-Q-May "Mata, Natsu ni Naru"
Distribution: Mikata Entertainment
Promotion: Movie Act Project
2023/Japan/Color/110 minutes ©Shonan Citizen Media Network

Cho-Q-May's "Mata, Natsu ni Naru" MV⬇️

~Story~
One day, Kei, a third-year high school student, is invited to make a film by his classmate Yu, whom he thought was a distant presence.
The film Yu wants to shoot is a story about "a boy who paints and a restless girl who travel aiming for a 'world where time does not flow'."
Friends Arisa, Kai, and Jiro also gather, and filming begins.
The joy of creating together, faint feelings of love, past misunderstandings... their relationships, holding various thoughts, change along with the filmmaking—
What is the last scene that their repeating summer reaches?

~Keihanshin Screening Information~
From Friday, January 31: UPLINK Kyoto
From Saturday, February 1: Theater Seven
From Saturday, March 1: Motomachi Movie Theater

On Saturday, February 1, there will be stage greetings at UPLINK Kyoto and Theater Seven,
and on Sunday, February 2, there will be a stage greeting at Theater Seven,
featuring Director Kota Nakano and Ryusei Chiba (who plays Jiro)!!

On Wednesday, February 5,
there will be a stage greeting at UPLINK Kyoto with Director Kota Nakano and Rei (who plays Yu),
and at Theater Seven with Director Kota Nakano, Rei, and Ryusei Chiba
in attendance!!