After Yuki & Nina in the 2009 Kplus programme, Nobuhiro Suwa returns to the Generation programme with another film. His new film Kaze No Denwa is in the 14+ programme. The day after the world premiere he takes a whole hour for Clara and me to answer our questions about the shooting process, the situation in Japan and other things. We make ourselves comfortable in the lounge of the Hotel Berlin, Berlin and exchange thoughts about Kaze No Denwa, Japan and the world with nice background music, while Isabelle kindly translates for us.
Free Generation Reporters: How did the film team come together and how did you find Serena Motola, Haru's actress?
Nobuhiro Suwa: It has been 18 years since I shot my last film in Japan. Since 2002, I have actually only worked with French producers. So I didn't know most of my new colleagues before. It was all very exciting and I was quite nervous, but everything went well.
We did a casting for Haru, several girls showed up, but in the end we decided to work with Serena Motola. She came to two casting dates, but for me it was already clear at the first date. At the second audition we let her improvise. She performed excellently and very naturally, although it was the first time she improvised like that without memorizing a text. Even then she could really dive into her role.
She is also a very special person. When you ask her something, she doesn't start talking right away, but thinks for a long time, sometimes for minutes. But while you're waiting for her, you never get tired of it, you'd like to keep watching her like this.
FGR: How did the other actors come to the film?
Nobuhiro Suwa: The encounters Haru has in the film are played by actors who - except for the Kurdish family - can already look back on a long and successful career in Japan. I have a special way of filming - I hardly set any dialogue beforehand, there is a lot of improvisation, so all actors who take part must have the will and motivation to do it and be able to do it. With her first encounte and also with the man who worked at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima I had worked before and therefore knew that I could entrust Haru to them without hesitation.
FGR: Yesterday it was said that the film was shot in the same order as it was finally shown in the film. Were the cities fixed from the beginning or did that partly happen in the course of the film?
Nobuhiro Suwa: The cities were already fixed before, we also visited them all in advance. But there are also things like the yellow rapeseed field, which we only discovered during the shooting and included in the film spontaneously.
FGR: Was the length of the film planned? It's a very long film, was there a limit for it or did it just end up like this in the editing?
Nobuhiro Suwa: You don't know the length of a film in advance at all. I also didn't know how long the individual scenes would be, it was completely dependent on the situation. There are many unknown factors. During the editing I tried to shorten it as much as possible, but I couldn't make it any shorter than now.
FGR: In the film Fukushima, but also Hiroshima and an earthquake recently are mentioned. How good is the processing of these events in Japan?
Nobuhiro Suwa: I cannot judge exactly how good the social processing of these incidents is in Japan. But in the case of Fukushima, many people died at once. Many children have lost their whole family and there are many programs for psychological support, but often the relatives of the children decide that they don't come to such institutions, but rather stay with relatives living far away. Sometimes it happens that the children's relatives then leave them alone with the psychological support.
Moreover, in Japan, it is probably the same as in many other societies: religion has hardly any social functions and people no longer believe in it. As a result, there is nothing left to turn to, so people turn to places like the wind phone (Kaze No Denwa), because no other place can offer them that. Even today people still go to this phone booth every day. By now, they are no longer just those who have lost relatives near Fukushima, but also those who have lost relatives and friends in an accident.
Another problem that is not directly related to the disaster is the psychological problems of children and young people. Many children in primary and middle school (grades 1 to 9) have very low self-confidence and feel lonely. I also hear this from many teachers I talk to. The suicide rate of children in Japan is also on the rise. In my opinion, the Japanese government and society is currently in a mental crisis. That's why I would like to give these children a message: it's good to just live.
FGR: We have already asked ourselves if and how Kaze No Denwa will be shown in Japan, and related to that, what reactions you expect. There are many unpleasant issues that are touched on, which not everyone might want to deal with. Do you think there will be any opposing voices to your film?
Nobuhiro Suwa: From the people who have seen the film so far, the reactions are without exception positive. My earlier films are rather artistic, which means they were rather shown in small arthouse cinemas. But now we have this film with a big distributor who brings his films to really big Cineplex cinemas. That means that comparatively many people can see it. On the other hand, not that many people have seen it yet.
FGR: But it was also the international premiere, so maybe it will be different soon.
Nubohiro Suwa tells us that the people in Japan prefer to deal with simple and easy to understand things, and he would like to know how it is in Germany. We can assure him that here in Germany, too, after work or studies, there is a deman for more "digestible" films and music, for example. But here at the Berlinale the audience is of course a little different.
Nobuhiro Suwa: I think that such simple films are also needed. But my film challenges the audience very much to deal with their own emotions. There isn't too big of an audience for that. Now nine years have passed since the catastrophe in Fukushima and many people don't want or can't deal with it at all. Then they might think that it's not possible now, but maybe later on.
We tell him that it worked out really well for us to get involved with the film and that the length fit well. When he remarks that this is probably also thanks to Serena Motola, we agree. Especially her last monologue, which according to Sunday's statement is 10 minutes long, doesn't feel that way at all.
Nobuhiro Suwa: She would have liked to have said even more - she could have gone on talking forever. I also think what she did was very brave. During the shooting she slipped into this situation for the first time and hadn't prepared herself. Normally you would be insecure as an actress and she had also thought about preparing something, for example writing something down on a piece of paper. But then she decided that this would be untrue and she had to get into the atmosphere of the day and the place.
FGR: So was it only one take?
Nobuhiro Suwa: Two. We recorded it once and played it through completely, but then she said: that was wrong, it's kind of a lie like this, I want to do it again.
FGR: What is the situation in Fukushima with the radiation now? In the film we see that everything is rebuilt and many people live there. But is there really no health risk anymore?
Nobuhiro Suwa: I think most people and also the media have forgotten that there is the problem of radioactivity. Only a small part of the population still has a strong awareness of the problem. The Japanese government has set certain values and said at which values it is safe to live there. But if you look at these values in an international comparison, they are very high. So there should also be an international debate on whether it is okay to classify such values as safe values. There is still a restricted zone in which you are not allowed to live, but the government has made it smaller and smaller. Overall, most people look away deliberately and are no longer aware of the problem. The thyroid cancer rate has also risen sharply in children. However, the Japanese government does not recognize that there is a connection with radioactivity.
I was there myself and when you are there it is a very strange sight. The zone in which you are allowed to live and the zone in which you are not allowed to live are separated by a simple fence. It is then difficult to understand why it has to be exactly there and why that is ok. It is a very strange region. In the case of Chernobyl at that time, there was a much more consistent approach; the Japanese Government is far too vague and inconsistent in its measures.
FGR: Does it have to do with denial? Does the government perhaps not want to admit mistakes?
Nobuhiro Suwa: Who does the Japanese government do politics for? In my opinion, for the economy. If big companies are doing well in Japan, the whole country is doing well. But how things are with normal people is of no interest at all. It is governed in such a way that those who have economic power are happy about their politics. It's like the Olympic Games. For this, many have to be built, which makes the construction companies feel good, trade flourishes and there is a lot of sales. That is this very simple and also outdated way of thinking that if the economy is doing well, people are happy too.
Clara and I express our sorrow that we in Germany, as such an economically strong country, are at the same time jointly responsible for a lot of suffering in the world, as can be seen again and again at this year's Berlinale (for example in Veins of the World).
Nobuhiro Suwa: But hasn't Germany also taken in many refugees? The Japanese government is very bad in this respect.
FGR: Not enough... But we were wondering, since the topic of immigration has been included in the film, whether you see it as a problem that migrants are not so accepted in Japanese society and whether you would like to see something change in that?
Nobuhiro Suwa: I think that has to be changed. At the moment the human rights of migrants are not respected. It happens every day that migrants are suddenly arrested as shown in the film and they don't come out of this detention for one or two years without knowing how long it will last. Unfortunately, this is everyday life.
With this film, however, I did not want to send out a strong political message; I think there are other ways and methods for doing so. My intention here was to show the perspective of a 17-year-old girl, how Japan looks like today in her eyes.
FGR: Thank you either way for including this in the film. We were not aware of it before. How openly is this known in Japan? Here we also hear about the Uyghurs in China and the Mexican immigrants in the USA, but nothing about Japan.
Nobuhiro Suwa: The international media hardly speak about this problem. But there's not much domestic coverage either, so I assume that most Japanese don't know anything about it.
FGR: So you didn't know about it yourself?
Nobuhiro Suwa: I know this from the co-author of the script, Kyoko Inukai. But I hardly knew about these problems myself. In the city where we shot this, there is a community of 2,000 refugee Kurds, I didn't know that either, for example. I met Ali (here he makes a grand gesture to implicate a big belly) first. He opened the doors to all the others and was a key figure. Ali has been living in Japan for over 30 years and has a Japanese wife, but still no official residence status. He has also been in custody for three years. All the court documents are in Japanese, so he couldn't read them at all at first. But an acquaintance brought a Japanese encyclopaedia to him in prison, so that he learned and perfected Japanese there.
FGR: The film shows very nicely that Haru is really flourishing among the Kurdish family for the first time and what an enrichment other cultures are.
Nobuhiro Suwa: Because Japan is surrounded by the sea, there is a strong awareness that Japan consists of only one people, one ethnic group. But it's not like that at all. There are very different people in Japan, there are many peoples and ethnic groups. But as soon as someone looks "different", people immediately think that he or she is a foreigner. That's why it was important to me to show that this is not the case and that there is already diversity in our society and that it is important and beautiful to live together.
We assure him that it is unfortunately no different in Germany, although we "don't even" have water borders. Here too, people are often asked about their migration background or directly referred to as foreigners, even if they were born in Germany and are German. That is probably similar all over the world.
When we thank him for his inspiring film and the so detailed and stimulating interview, he himself has one last question for us.
Nobuhiro Suwa: Haru is a very silent girl, but in general people in Japan don't talk that much, so she doesn't seem that strange in Japan. Is she very special for you in this regard with her silence?
FGR: She is very special to us, in a positive way. Also yesterday at the Q & A, it had an incredible power how long she thought about her answers. Here it is more common to try and fill a silence desperately. One prefers to say something very quickly without thinking, instead of being silent for too long.
At this point he explains that Serena Motola even kept herself short yesterday and used to take much longer. So she is also special in Japan.
After almost exactly one hour we thank him again for the interview. It was a wonderful interruption to our film-filled daily Berlinale life and reminded me why I love it so much to be not only a spectator but also a journalist at the Berlinale. With beaming faces we take a last picture with him, also thank our interpreter Isabelle Mathes and leave the hotel to go to the next film.
Pictures: © Moritz Littbarski
Free Generation Reporters: How did the film team come together and how did you find Serena Motola, Haru's actress?
Nobuhiro Suwa: It has been 18 years since I shot my last film in Japan. Since 2002, I have actually only worked with French producers. So I didn't know most of my new colleagues before. It was all very exciting and I was quite nervous, but everything went well.We did a casting for Haru, several girls showed up, but in the end we decided to work with Serena Motola. She came to two casting dates, but for me it was already clear at the first date. At the second audition we let her improvise. She performed excellently and very naturally, although it was the first time she improvised like that without memorizing a text. Even then she could really dive into her role.
She is also a very special person. When you ask her something, she doesn't start talking right away, but thinks for a long time, sometimes for minutes. But while you're waiting for her, you never get tired of it, you'd like to keep watching her like this.
FGR: How did the other actors come to the film?
Nobuhiro Suwa: The encounters Haru has in the film are played by actors who - except for the Kurdish family - can already look back on a long and successful career in Japan. I have a special way of filming - I hardly set any dialogue beforehand, there is a lot of improvisation, so all actors who take part must have the will and motivation to do it and be able to do it. With her first encounte and also with the man who worked at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima I had worked before and therefore knew that I could entrust Haru to them without hesitation.
FGR: Yesterday it was said that the film was shot in the same order as it was finally shown in the film. Were the cities fixed from the beginning or did that partly happen in the course of the film?
Nobuhiro Suwa: The cities were already fixed before, we also visited them all in advance. But there are also things like the yellow rapeseed field, which we only discovered during the shooting and included in the film spontaneously.
FGR: Was the length of the film planned? It's a very long film, was there a limit for it or did it just end up like this in the editing?
Nobuhiro Suwa: You don't know the length of a film in advance at all. I also didn't know how long the individual scenes would be, it was completely dependent on the situation. There are many unknown factors. During the editing I tried to shorten it as much as possible, but I couldn't make it any shorter than now.
FGR: In the film Fukushima, but also Hiroshima and an earthquake recently are mentioned. How good is the processing of these events in Japan?
Nobuhiro Suwa: I cannot judge exactly how good the social processing of these incidents is in Japan. But in the case of Fukushima, many people died at once. Many children have lost their whole family and there are many programs for psychological support, but often the relatives of the children decide that they don't come to such institutions, but rather stay with relatives living far away. Sometimes it happens that the children's relatives then leave them alone with the psychological support.
Moreover, in Japan, it is probably the same as in many other societies: religion has hardly any social functions and people no longer believe in it. As a result, there is nothing left to turn to, so people turn to places like the wind phone (Kaze No Denwa), because no other place can offer them that. Even today people still go to this phone booth every day. By now, they are no longer just those who have lost relatives near Fukushima, but also those who have lost relatives and friends in an accident.
Another problem that is not directly related to the disaster is the psychological problems of children and young people. Many children in primary and middle school (grades 1 to 9) have very low self-confidence and feel lonely. I also hear this from many teachers I talk to. The suicide rate of children in Japan is also on the rise. In my opinion, the Japanese government and society is currently in a mental crisis. That's why I would like to give these children a message: it's good to just live.
FGR: We have already asked ourselves if and how Kaze No Denwa will be shown in Japan, and related to that, what reactions you expect. There are many unpleasant issues that are touched on, which not everyone might want to deal with. Do you think there will be any opposing voices to your film?
Nobuhiro Suwa: From the people who have seen the film so far, the reactions are without exception positive. My earlier films are rather artistic, which means they were rather shown in small arthouse cinemas. But now we have this film with a big distributor who brings his films to really big Cineplex cinemas. That means that comparatively many people can see it. On the other hand, not that many people have seen it yet.FGR: But it was also the international premiere, so maybe it will be different soon.
Nubohiro Suwa tells us that the people in Japan prefer to deal with simple and easy to understand things, and he would like to know how it is in Germany. We can assure him that here in Germany, too, after work or studies, there is a deman for more "digestible" films and music, for example. But here at the Berlinale the audience is of course a little different.
Nobuhiro Suwa: I think that such simple films are also needed. But my film challenges the audience very much to deal with their own emotions. There isn't too big of an audience for that. Now nine years have passed since the catastrophe in Fukushima and many people don't want or can't deal with it at all. Then they might think that it's not possible now, but maybe later on.
We tell him that it worked out really well for us to get involved with the film and that the length fit well. When he remarks that this is probably also thanks to Serena Motola, we agree. Especially her last monologue, which according to Sunday's statement is 10 minutes long, doesn't feel that way at all.
Nobuhiro Suwa: She would have liked to have said even more - she could have gone on talking forever. I also think what she did was very brave. During the shooting she slipped into this situation for the first time and hadn't prepared herself. Normally you would be insecure as an actress and she had also thought about preparing something, for example writing something down on a piece of paper. But then she decided that this would be untrue and she had to get into the atmosphere of the day and the place.
FGR: So was it only one take?
Nobuhiro Suwa: Two. We recorded it once and played it through completely, but then she said: that was wrong, it's kind of a lie like this, I want to do it again.
FGR: What is the situation in Fukushima with the radiation now? In the film we see that everything is rebuilt and many people live there. But is there really no health risk anymore?
Nobuhiro Suwa: I think most people and also the media have forgotten that there is the problem of radioactivity. Only a small part of the population still has a strong awareness of the problem. The Japanese government has set certain values and said at which values it is safe to live there. But if you look at these values in an international comparison, they are very high. So there should also be an international debate on whether it is okay to classify such values as safe values. There is still a restricted zone in which you are not allowed to live, but the government has made it smaller and smaller. Overall, most people look away deliberately and are no longer aware of the problem. The thyroid cancer rate has also risen sharply in children. However, the Japanese government does not recognize that there is a connection with radioactivity.
I was there myself and when you are there it is a very strange sight. The zone in which you are allowed to live and the zone in which you are not allowed to live are separated by a simple fence. It is then difficult to understand why it has to be exactly there and why that is ok. It is a very strange region. In the case of Chernobyl at that time, there was a much more consistent approach; the Japanese Government is far too vague and inconsistent in its measures.
FGR: Does it have to do with denial? Does the government perhaps not want to admit mistakes?
Nobuhiro Suwa: Who does the Japanese government do politics for? In my opinion, for the economy. If big companies are doing well in Japan, the whole country is doing well. But how things are with normal people is of no interest at all. It is governed in such a way that those who have economic power are happy about their politics. It's like the Olympic Games. For this, many have to be built, which makes the construction companies feel good, trade flourishes and there is a lot of sales. That is this very simple and also outdated way of thinking that if the economy is doing well, people are happy too.
Clara and I express our sorrow that we in Germany, as such an economically strong country, are at the same time jointly responsible for a lot of suffering in the world, as can be seen again and again at this year's Berlinale (for example in Veins of the World).
Nobuhiro Suwa: But hasn't Germany also taken in many refugees? The Japanese government is very bad in this respect.
FGR: Not enough... But we were wondering, since the topic of immigration has been included in the film, whether you see it as a problem that migrants are not so accepted in Japanese society and whether you would like to see something change in that?
Nobuhiro Suwa: I think that has to be changed. At the moment the human rights of migrants are not respected. It happens every day that migrants are suddenly arrested as shown in the film and they don't come out of this detention for one or two years without knowing how long it will last. Unfortunately, this is everyday life.
With this film, however, I did not want to send out a strong political message; I think there are other ways and methods for doing so. My intention here was to show the perspective of a 17-year-old girl, how Japan looks like today in her eyes.
FGR: Thank you either way for including this in the film. We were not aware of it before. How openly is this known in Japan? Here we also hear about the Uyghurs in China and the Mexican immigrants in the USA, but nothing about Japan.
Nobuhiro Suwa: The international media hardly speak about this problem. But there's not much domestic coverage either, so I assume that most Japanese don't know anything about it.
FGR: So you didn't know about it yourself?
Nobuhiro Suwa: I know this from the co-author of the script, Kyoko Inukai. But I hardly knew about these problems myself. In the city where we shot this, there is a community of 2,000 refugee Kurds, I didn't know that either, for example. I met Ali (here he makes a grand gesture to implicate a big belly) first. He opened the doors to all the others and was a key figure. Ali has been living in Japan for over 30 years and has a Japanese wife, but still no official residence status. He has also been in custody for three years. All the court documents are in Japanese, so he couldn't read them at all at first. But an acquaintance brought a Japanese encyclopaedia to him in prison, so that he learned and perfected Japanese there.FGR: The film shows very nicely that Haru is really flourishing among the Kurdish family for the first time and what an enrichment other cultures are.
Nobuhiro Suwa: Because Japan is surrounded by the sea, there is a strong awareness that Japan consists of only one people, one ethnic group. But it's not like that at all. There are very different people in Japan, there are many peoples and ethnic groups. But as soon as someone looks "different", people immediately think that he or she is a foreigner. That's why it was important to me to show that this is not the case and that there is already diversity in our society and that it is important and beautiful to live together.
We assure him that it is unfortunately no different in Germany, although we "don't even" have water borders. Here too, people are often asked about their migration background or directly referred to as foreigners, even if they were born in Germany and are German. That is probably similar all over the world.
When we thank him for his inspiring film and the so detailed and stimulating interview, he himself has one last question for us.
Nobuhiro Suwa: Haru is a very silent girl, but in general people in Japan don't talk that much, so she doesn't seem that strange in Japan. Is she very special for you in this regard with her silence?
FGR: She is very special to us, in a positive way. Also yesterday at the Q & A, it had an incredible power how long she thought about her answers. Here it is more common to try and fill a silence desperately. One prefers to say something very quickly without thinking, instead of being silent for too long.
At this point he explains that Serena Motola even kept herself short yesterday and used to take much longer. So she is also special in Japan.After almost exactly one hour we thank him again for the interview. It was a wonderful interruption to our film-filled daily Berlinale life and reminded me why I love it so much to be not only a spectator but also a journalist at the Berlinale. With beaming faces we take a last picture with him, also thank our interpreter Isabelle Mathes and leave the hotel to go to the next film.
28.02.2020, Johanna Gosten
Pictures: © Moritz Littbarski
serh schöne interwiew! über eine der schönste Filme diese Jahe Berlinael
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