Hiroshi Okuyama has been making movies ever since he was a teenager. During his studies at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo, he directed his debut feature “Jesus”, which was given the New Directors Award at the 2018 San Sebastián International Film Festival. Teenagers, growing up, first love are also among the themes in his second feature “My Sunshine”. Besides being a coming-of-age feature, “My Sunshine” is also a tale about acceptance, gender roles and conformity within Japanese society.
The main character of “My Sunshine” really loves the season of winter. What was your favorite season when you were a teenager?
I was born in Tokyo and snow was something of a rarity, which is probably why I loved winter so much. It was very exciting to see how the whole atmosphere of a city could change when over night snow had fallen.
One of the most important features in “My Sunshine” seems to be light. Can you say something about the significance of light in your movie?
When you see Sakura figure skating, in the background you hear Claude Debussy’s “Clair de lune”. This is a very beautiful sport and I thought the light should be a contributing factor to emphasize this beauty. Since the song is also about the moonlight which is why I wanted some kind of light in that particular scene.
Generally speaking, in every scene I wanted to include the light, which I thought is kind of natural, given the title of my movie.
Was its difficult to find actors and actresses who are also good figure skaters or willing to learn the sport?
Keitatsu Koshiyama actually could do a bit of figure skating and we cast him really early into production. However, finding the right actress for Sakura was quite challenging. We found Kiara Nakanishi almost by accident and because she was a very talented figure skater. She had no background in acting whatsoever, but we cast her as the character anyway. She is the perfect fit for the role for Sakura.
“My Sunshine” is a story about grace and finding your rhythm in life. How important are these topics for the movie and also for you as a director when it comes to making a feature?
When Arakawa, played by Sosuke Ikematsu, sees Takuya practicing figure skating on his own and failing miserably, he decides to train this teenager. Upon seeing this young man, he re-discovers a passion inside of him which he sees reflected in Takuya who might not yet have the skills, but he has the same drive like he did when he was that age. The ideas you mentioned are really important to me, for the feature but also in general, why I wanted to incorporate them in the story.
