26/06/2009 by McAllister.

Best news of all was to be selected in competition this week for Japans leading doc festival set in Naoki’s small town Yamagata about 3 hours north of Tokyo. For me and Naoki it will be the end ceremony for the film. I must move on and so must he. It will be nice to celebrate the films success at being one of only 15 films to be selected out of 1150 other films for competition. I will get together with my japanese family for one last time. Sake all round no doubt.

Below is the email I wrote to the festival in acceptance. For some reason they want to show the very very long (110mins) version of the film that I made for NHK. I wanted them to show my 70min festival version but lost the fight.

Here is my mail to them…

I am pleased my mission was worthwhile to a japanese audience as well as to western audiences here. I get emotional mails everyday from japanese or westerners who worked as teachers in rural Japan some who had difficulty voicing their experiences as they run counter to the many misconceptions of japan often created by lazy western media who don’t take the time to understand and playout the usual stupid streotypes.

The film got enormous attention on the BBC playing twice at 9pm prime time many pages of news print reviews and Naoki tasted the fame and success he deserves at festival premieres in Sheffield and Amsterdam. The part time postman enjoyed being the movie star for a few days! The film won various awards at many festivals around the world so the icing on the cake for me was to be selected for your festival in Naoki’s hometown - and have my japanese family reunited once more to celebrate all their efforts in making our great film.

I have no objection to you showing the 110 min version if you feel it is more interesting for your audience. In my mail to Taichi I said I hope there may be a way of making the 70 min version available for people to see also maybe in the library. For me it is very personal, as you know it is a big part of my life. Whether I like it or not I feel kind of half japanese now anyway.
Thanks to everyone for selecting the film. I have no problem with you showing the 110 min version.
Cheers sean

Posted in japan | 1 Comment »

26/06/2009 by admin.

hi sean san

these are picture of newspaper.

one has using our picture which you took.

this is yamagata regional version of Asahi news .

Asahi is interested in your film.

Asahi is biggest news paper and tv company in japan.

ther article is sympathetic to your film.

another one is writen by a biggest news paper company in yamagata.

this paper has admiration for your film.cause this is the first time chosen which used object in Yamagata.

Naoki

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20/06/2009 by McAllister.

Japan: A Story of Love and Hate (YouTube)

It is really good that someone took the time to post my japan film on YouTube.

I was in the pub in my hometown Hull when I got a mail from  Kev (the
guy in  my first film ‘Working For the Enemy’ 1997 who now runs my website,
+ my friend Sean Langan’s site too) telling me he had just found it.   I had the pleasure of
watching my own film between pubs on my new Blackberry Bold, which was fun.

Then my friend Nick sent a mail to say he’d also seen the film on YouTube and it had
already had 3000 hits which was nice to know. When I got home I found the
following mail  waiting for me.

“This is one of the best documentary movies I have ever seen–very well
constructed into a compelling story that revealed much about contemporary Japan.
Your film hooked me to the point that I am very curious about what happened
to the couple after the happy ending.  I am waiting in anticipation for your sequel– any chance?”

It feels like there isn’t a day go by when I don’t get something like this. It is very encouraging for me as I
struggle to get a new film off the ground in the very very familiar setting
of my hometown where I started out gosh it must be over 20 years ago.

Funny, I still feel like the newcomer. The new kid on the block not quite sure what
I’m doing each time, navigating myself through similiar motions in different
places with different people. This time I am looking for a film to be part of a
new BBC season on the north of England. Slowly but surely I hope to be
getting somewhere.

Sean
19 june 2009

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26/04/2009 by McAllister.

Wow just been at a wonderfully strange festival in oxford called Oxdox which is run by a wonderful woman called Marie Wright who is as passionate as crazy like me I feel. Maybe we share the same chaotic madness.

Her new venue for the festival was as much an adventure as the amazing films Oxdox shows. A tiny 100 seater indie place where the projectionist is hidden upstairs above the ticket office. The only way up is by some iron ladders on the exterior of the building.

Inside, the projectionist tells me he is also the owner. His wife is helping repair some of the interior seats. They run the place together making next to nothing. A worthy subject of a film itself I feel. I am speechless. This man is amazing.

Outside the queues forms. Clearly more then can be catered for inside. Marie does exactly what I would do in such a situation sending off her volunteers to find chairs in nearby bars and cafes. But here out on the street in front of her queuing audience she he is grappling for cash to pay my travel. Thrusting hundred or so pounds in my hands thinking out load about the Eskimo she has brought over who is the subject of the next film.  She must appear quite mad to many but to me she is quite sobering and sane…

But there is a problem. So successful a screening is the Eskimos film that there is no seat for him inside.

I leave Marie with her problem but I feel happy for her and for Oxdox; a truly unique festival in the hands of a unique person who I think should be celebrated in her own film like the projectionist and owner of this wonderful independent theatre where the festival takes place.

To top it all as I leave I get a call from Nizam a friend from Norway who tells me my Japan film has won the top international documentary prize in Norway. Damn I wish I was there. Of all the films I’ve made this is the one I need to win an award and I wish I was there to accept it.

Oxdox - http://www.oxdox.com/2009festival/

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14/04/2009 by McAllister.

Wasn’t it Philip Larkin the famous poet who lived round the corner from me here in Hull that wrote - ‘hull, hell and halifax’, when writing about the city he loved to hate but never hated enough to leave?  Little like me it feels although today i write, ‘Dubai or Hull.  What a choice, between Larkin’s hell and hell.

What’s the difference between Hull or Dubai? well i know Hull, i love the chips here and the beer. Dubai? I love the Indian food, warm weather (although that becomes hell in summer) and mid-eastern food. The downside is that Dubai is like a large shopping centre in the desert with a mix of hopeless people looking to make ends meet. Hull isn’t so dissimilar these days.

But whats the story… the great British recession… Dubai crashing?

I feel an allegiance to  my city but can’t face the idea of filming here right now, maybe if i found a character quickly… but i always say that and it rarely happens. Besides which, as Dubai crashes it feels symbolic of capitalism as we know it today, and it is that that attracts me to the story. And then there is  the glimmer of hope provided by a charity out there that is helping abandoned Indian construction workers whose employers have gone bust and left them. On $4 a day they find it difficult to buy  a ticket home.

Although filming isn’t going to be easy and it may end up with me being kicked out. “Shrewdly” i hope to follow an Indian construction worker or workers home to India  as a way of filming freely, although my ultimate aim for the best film there is with a local, one of the few 18% (80% of people living in Dubai are ‘immigrants’) - I would love to find someone who can provide a sane voice to what is going on  in Dubai. Quite simple really, now all i have to do is find such a person.

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08/04/2009 by McAllister.

PLAY DOC, TUI. a small documentary film fest in Spain, the “local produce” led me astray for a while… but this was the best fest of the year so far for me. sweet and friendly small enough to still care passionately about films their makers and the audience. it reminded me of what sundance film fest must have once been like. can’t wait to go back!! check the theatre, full at 10.30pm screening before a night of madness. my kind of festival.

Posted in general, japan | 3 Comments »

30/03/2009 by admin.

‘Japan: A Story of Love and Hate’ will receive it’s UK broadcast premier tonight on BBC Four at 9pm, it will be repeated at 11:40pm. McAllisters film brings to a close the BBC series ‘Hidden Japan’.

Posted in japan | 1 Comment »

30/03/2009 by McAllister.

hi Sean san

i’m sorry i could not see the previews that you say.

coud you send me?

and i red the mail to you from first object who lived in tokyo which mail you sent me as last e-mail.

i think my “openness”…i have nothing openness even now.

i had been openned my mind and expressed my mind just for you.

i believed you.

and now i do believe you,of course.

if people say that they feel my openness..it is not my openness.

it was result of your struggle to open my shadow and shadow of rich japan for 2 years.its great!

now i am very proud of you and your film “Japan:A story of Love and Hate”.

its our new family treasure.

and must be our heirloom.

i miss you and your family and Sheffield people and Londom people!

see you soon on BBC4 tonight!

Naoki

Posted in japan | 11 Comments »

27/03/2009 by McAllister.

Sean will show his 1998 iraq film THE MINDERS at THE FRONLINE CLUB in Paddington London 7pm friday eve,  17th april 2009. Afterwards there will be a discussion/talk about Sean’s work. The Chair for the evening will be announced closer to the date..

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20/03/2009 by McAllister.

I was at the wonderful one world festival in Prague last weekend. It’s great to see how big it has grown since my film ‘Settlers’ opened it in 2000.

Sadly on my arrival I got an email from Samir (the Liberace of Baghdad) from my last film. He is now living in USA but wrote to say he has prostate cancer and is going for 42 days radiation treatment.

That evening I sat by the grand piano in the foyer of the beautiful 1930s cinema and missed him dearly.

The Japan film was packed and was voted 4th fav film by the audience the next day. Not bad out of 300 films.

Today I arrived in Porto, Portugal, heading to small village festival just over the border in Spain. A place called Tui. But no-one has come to meet me. So I’m on a bus trying to make my own way there.

It gave me horror memories of my last time showing a film here in Portugal in 1996, I was with with Kev from ‘Working For the Enemy’ no one showed up to meet us and no one came to see the film

Well at least this festival is over the border in Spain. Let’s hope there is an audience at 22:30 for the film tonight. If I make it.

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