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