Director Yoju Matsubayashi spent about a decade building toward “Okinawa Saudade,” a documentary that follows Brazilian dancers of Okinawan descent as they reconnect with their island roots. The film had its world premiere Oct. 31 in the Nippon Cinema Now section of the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival, and Matsubayashi walked through its long road to the screen in an interview with Variety.
It started almost by accident. In 2016, with a Fukushima project stalled, Matsubayashi spent a year living in Brazil. There he stumbled onto a piece of history that would shape his next 10 years of filmmaking.
A wartime story leads to Okinawa
During his stay, Matsubayashi learned about the forced relocation of Japanese immigrants from the port city of Santos on July 8, 1943, during World War II. Some 60% of those forced out were from Okinawa, a detail that drew him further into the subject.
That discovery became his 2020 documentary “Okinawa/Santos,” which pieced the episode together from interviews with people who lived through it. “I think ‘Okinawa/Santos,’ that one was more about putting together different testimonials,” he told Variety. That’s a structure he set aside for the new film.
The Okinawan presence in Brazil runs deep. Matsubayashi said that at Bunkyo, a cultural center in São Paulo’s Liberdade district that houses Portuguese- and Japanese-language immigrant documents, the Okinawan records come to nearly the same volume as those from Japan’s other 46 prefectures. “Meaning that the Okinawans left a lot of records of themselves,” he said.
From ‘Okinawa/Santos’ to ‘Okinawa Saudade’
After finishing “Okinawa/Santos,” Matsubayashi got to know Urizunkai, a Brazilian Okinawan community group that sends young Okinawan Brazilians to Okinawa for training and scholarships. The timing lined up. In July 2024, Brazil’s government formally apologized to victims of the relocation, and the exchange trip that followed gave him a story to film.
Dance at the film’s core
The documentary centers on two subjects from the newest generation of Okinawan immigrant families. Yumi is a young dancer of Ryukyu Buyo, Okinawa’s classical dance. Everton Arashiro teaches Eisa, the island’s drum-led festival dance, in Brazil. The two travel to Okinawa to learn about its history and culture.
“This film, ‘Okinawa Saudade,’ it’s more of a film about dancing – dancing means that there’s more emotion involved,” Matsubayashi said.
The film also takes on what counts as tradition. Traditional Eisa is performed with singing and the sanshin, a three-stringed instrument. Creative Eisa, which began in Brazil about 45 years ago, doesn’t need the sanshin. “But with Creative Eisa, you don’t need to have the sanshin,” he said. He argues that the Brazilian form has earned its own place as a tradition.
Matsubayashi puts himself in the frame, too. “I think this is a film that’s done in a first person perspective: of Yumi, Everton, and myself,” he said. On screen, he asks the same questions as his subjects: “Who am I, what kind of person am I?” “So it’s three people trying to ask that question in the film,” he said.
He also described how the community welcomed him. He pointed to the Okinawan saying “ichariba choodee,” which he said means people become like brother and sister, and said that’s how his subjects came to see him once he’d interviewed them.
Funding pressures behind the scenes
Money has gotten harder to find. While making “Okinawa/Santos,” Matsubayashi worked on programs for NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster. He said that work paid about 10 million yen, or about $63,000, which he used to fund his next film. NHK now has less to spend, he said, pointing to a weak currency and a shrinking budget. A grant from Okinawa Prefecture paid for post-production on “Okinawa Saudade.”
“Japanese documentaries, we’re going through a lot of difficult circumstances right now,” he said.
What’s next
The Tokyo festival ran Oct. 26 through Nov. 4, and this year Nippon Cinema Now became a competitive section. No wider release date or further festival dates for “Okinawa Saudade” have been announced.
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