WHY DID YOU MAKE THIS FILM ?

I was in Japan for one year at university (from September 2009 to September 2010) and it was absolutely out of the question to leave the country without having shot a fiction in that country.

In early January 2010, I went to a concert in Shibuya (Tokyo), I shot some part of the live concert with my small compact photo camera hidden in my pocket. I wasn’t even looking at what I was shooting. When I got back home, I watched what I shot and, when I saw those peeping-film-like videos, I thought it was visually extremely powerful; it could become a very interesting concept as a movie.

And I remembered an idea I had several years before about a guy in love with a girl who doesn’t know it and he spies and shoots video of her without her noticing it… A kind of espionage love story. There are sometimes, in movies, some “voyeur” shots, some shots took, for example, hidden outside a window, spying someone inside, and giving this feeling that we’re peeping to something we shouldn’t. Brian de Palma did it quite a lot. It’s also often done in 80’s horror films.

And I thought it could be really interesting to make a film only made with videos shot through the camera of a guy who, at first, shoot in a contemplative and poetic way things of his lonely life, and then, probably out of boredom, let himself crossing the line not to be crossed: to shoot someone he likes without her knowing. At first, with some distance, and then, little by little, forgetting totally the limits of privacy and intimacy…

I wanted, with that film, to raise a question: in this world where anyone can upload images/videos of everyone without permission, will "privacy" or "respect to one’s image" still mean something for a long time?

The film raises that question, maybe in a puzzling way, or even a disturbing way, but at least it raises the question in a very clear way. It brings no answer, no moral. It’s not its purpose. It lets anyone find their own answers.

WHAT KIND OF OBSTACLES DID YOU ENCOUNTER MAKING THE FILM?

I thought it would be complicated, if not impossible, to find an actress who would understand the point and the originality of this project. If you’re a foreigner in Tokyo, if you make a movie with a ridiculous budget, and if your movie deals with an ultra delicate topic, and with an unusual visual style, you don’t put the odds on your side. I thought that to find an actress would be the biggest, if not the only real obstacle of the film. And I was wrong.

With my friend, and actor in the film, Yuta Kato, we met some actresses and we explained them the project. Each time, I feared an unpredictable reaction. And each time, I was surprised to see that they were curious, asked questions about the style, the content… And from memory, no one seemed to show a bit of a worry. Quite the opposite, I think that such a project must have been a kind of amusement to her, or a challenge.

Which is fine! To work with people who have fun on my shooting, or people that take it as a challenge, that’s an attitude that gives me even more motivation.

COULD YOU GIVE US YOUR PHILOSOPHY AND THOUGHTS TOWARDS FILMS AND FILM MAKING?

No matter what film I make, might it be accessible to a big audience or “delicate” and experimental like Aru Manazashi, my process is the same. My main motivation, it’s an absolute love for movies, and sometimes, the disappointment to see so few movies trying something different, unusual. So, through its topic and its style, I try to make a movie I wish I could see, but doesn’t exist as far as I know.

My wish, as a filmmaker, is to try! Even if it totally fails… I have more admiration for filmmakers who tried crazy things and totally failed, than for those who did masterpieces and played the safety card.