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Katsuya Tomita

Katsuya Tomita

Birth : 1972-04-18, Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan

History

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.

Profile

Katsuya Tomita

Movies

Editor

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.

Director

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.

Ozawa

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.

Screenplay

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.

Director

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.

Chiang Rai Girl

Chiang Rai Girl

Screenplay

Chiang Rai Girl

Chiang Rai Girl

Director

Editor

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.

Screenplay

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.

Director

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.

The Route 20 National Road

The Route 20 National Road

Writer

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 scheme, "Quit inhaling paint thinner and score big with me!" Hisashi's dead-end life is made up of the same things that symbolize contemporary rural Japan: Karaoke clubs, pachinko parlors, ATM loan machines and discount outlets along a highway. In this ordinary place that is just like hundreds of other small towns in Japan, Hisashi sees the darkness. Darkness that is out of the reach of neon lights along the highway. In the vacuum of this darkness, life repeats itself endlessly. Hisashi has a flashback of a paint-thinner trip he once had. The hallucination tempts him to the other side. Tantalized, he asks himself, "Can I really go?

The Route 20 National Road

The Route 20 National Road

Director

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 scheme, "Quit inhaling paint thinner and score big with me!" Hisashi's dead-end life is made up of the same things that symbolize contemporary rural Japan: Karaoke clubs, pachinko parlors, ATM loan machines and discount outlets along a highway. In this ordinary place that is just like hundreds of other small towns in Japan, Hisashi sees the darkness. Darkness that is out of the reach of neon lights along the highway. In the vacuum of this darkness, life repeats itself endlessly. Hisashi has a flashback of a paint-thinner trip he once had. The hallucination tempts him to the other side. Tantalized, he asks himself, "Can I really go?

Above the Clouds

Above the Clouds

Director

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.

Kuzoku meets Formosa

Kuzoku meets Formosa

Director