Sad & Beautiful World – Documentary Screening “The End of the Special Time We Were Allowed”

Tue 05 Jan 2016, 7 pm
Nha San Collective

From The Onion Cellar:

The Onion Cellar presents in collaboration with Nhà Sàn Collective:

A screening of the documentary “THE END OF THE SPECIAL TIME WE WERE ALLOWED” (Japan, 2013) plus a post-screening Q&A with the film’s director Shingo Ota

THE END OF THE SPECIAL TIME WE WERE ALLOWED:

Dir – Shingo Ota
Japan / 119 min / 2013
Languages: Japanese, with subtitles in English & Vietnamese

Trailer:

[youtube width=”700″ height=”393″]https://youtu.be/yZIhjPLTf2I[/youtube]

Video for the track 僕らはシークレット by Sota Masuda:

[youtube width=”700″ height=”393″]https://youtu.be/mHlbELrI3ZA[/youtube]

“Do you have a talent for suicide?”

Director’s Statement [excerpt]:

“27-year-old Sota is the main character of this documentary. ‘There’s nothing more for me to learn in school,’ he says about his choice to drop out from high school. He came to Tokyo and grabbed his chance to debut with his music on a major label.

The filming begins just when his clinical manic-depression takes a bad turn, his debut is cancelled, and he is returning home to his parents’ house. We see him hanging out in his hometown with his friends – Kurando, who adores Sota and claims to want to be a musician, but never practices; Sota’s ex-girlfriend Yukino, who, unlike the other ‘freeters’, works diligently in a stable job as a cook and continues music on the side, and others.

Although Sota was a lowly ‘freeter’ returning home after his dreams were shattered, I felt there were many shining moments of laughter and happiness in those days in his hometown. But one day Sota suddenly kills himself and dies at the age of 27. His dream to make a comeback with his music never comes true.

“The facts are simple, but in fact I was overcome by a sense of guilt about Sota’s death. Would he still be alive had I not filmed him? My days became mired deep in depression. Could it be that Sota’s performative personality made him choose death in a final desperate longing, to maintain his special existence on camera?

‘You have to finish the film, promote my music and paintings after my death, like Yamada Kamachi’ (a “genius” artist who died young) – he wrote in the letter he left before his suicide.”

– Shingo Ota

DONATION [on the door]:
50,000 VND
30,000 VND (with valid student ID)

Donations will go towards the film’s director Shingo Ota

Event #2 as part of The Onion Cellar’s new Sad & Beautiful World edition [http://ow.ly/Vo0jT]

Nha San COLLECTIVE 15th floor, Hanoi Creative City Building, 01 Luong Yen, Hanoi Website: https://www.facebook.com/NhaSanCollective Email: [email protected]