| This film was created as a “collective improvisation” with non-actors. Each participant had only the character loosely based on him/herself, and the stories have developed as improvisations along the way of filming, reacting to each other as well as to the surrounding environments: the reality of Tokyo where even private spaces like apartments are constantly invaded by sounds and noises from the public spaces outside. Most scenes were carefully composed as continuous, uninterrupted sequence shots. The desire was to capture the atmosphere as a whole; as slices, or fragments, of our contemporary urbanized reality, and to observe how we cope (or very often we cannot) with it. |
--Toshi Fujiwara, Tokyo, Dec. 2005 |
Director's Profile
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Toshi FUJIWARA (director, cinematographer, editor) grew up in Tokyo and Paris, and was educated in film studies in Tokyo and Los Angeles. Film Critic since 1994, he also worked as assistant for filmmaker Kiju YOSHIDA, and collaborated on an uncompleted project of Robert KRAMER. In 2001, Israeli filmmaker Amos GITAI pushed him into filmmaking by asking him to direct the making-of documentary of his film Kedma. This directorial debut Independence; Around the film Kedma by Amos Gitai (2002) was praised as "creating a unique and forceful inter-textual dialogue very much in the tradition of Gitai’s own best work. Possibly the best film ever made in the genre" (Ray Privett), "It totally changed my views of the Palestinian conflict" (Noriaki TSUCHIMOTO). After making 4 documentaries, We Can't Go Home Again is his first fiction. |
Filmography
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