Exclusive interview: Hanno Yoshihiro from "Lightning Over the Beyond" (彼方の閃光)

"Lightning Over the Beyond" (Éclairs sur l'Au-Delà... or 彼方の閃光/ Kanata no Senkō in Japanese) is one of the films in Nippon Cinema Now category at 35th Tokyo International Film Festival 2022. By the courtesy of TIFF, we got an opportunity to have special interview with Hanno Yoshihiro, a film director from movie, to share his viewpoints and behind-the-scene ideas we never know before. 

Hanno Yoshihiro after the interview 

inStyle Asia: What is the main reasons to make this film and why you decided to make a black and white film?

Hanno Yoshihiro: The original idea is really came from my thoughts about what is the cinema? and the answer came to me is, the light may be shone or shining in the darkness. I thought that it might be a very good way to start making a film.

About the concept of the film why i made it this way. We talk about it by starting with the blackness. I want to see the audience experienced in the way that we see the world and the eyes as a director personally in the world of colors. I wanted to see the audience make the same journey by starting from nothing (blackness) to the world of full colors, so i got that it's a good transition to show on screen. However we got all that idea which is just a conceptual art, so i thought why we don't make a drama about the characters like a human drama. 

In order to do that, i thought the idea of "let's have a protagonist who blinded after born and have a camera be his eyes". 

To see the world and transitioning this world through protagonist side. We knew from the story that he got an eyes operation. He gain his eyesight but can see only black and white color. Through the experience of this boy, the audience gain it by their own experience for 49 minutes, they are coming from the world of black and white, and then regaining the world of the full colors.

Gordon Maeda 

inStyle Asia
: You are high reputation as a music composer, please let us know your inspiration to work as a film director. How you experimented your music experience to the films. 

Hanno Yoshihiro: So, first, talk about what i think is, i think music is a very musical medium and vice versa. The film is related to the factor of time we try to share and tell something to the audience, i think there is a huge overlap between this two mediums.

Ikeuchi Hiroyuki 

inStyle Asia: What is your main reason you chose the main four characters 

Hanno Yoshihiro: The reason i chose the main four characters is, i want to make the opposite characters. Each character has their own different world view. They all have their own principle and their own way to understand the world. That's the main reason to cast through the ways they are. 

Talk about the dialogue which is showing me personally, actor Shogen, an Okinawan tour guide in the film set a question "What is an enemy?". It's not about who is our enemy but it's "what is the enemy?". This is a question that reflects my mind what i'm thinking about. This four characters have distinctive viewpoints. I think, there are no right or wrong. There are no right characters and wrong character. What you see here between the dynamic of this characters is, this four characters who strolling each other with their own principle, their own viewpoints. I want the audience just look at this four people and see what you feel and how you think about this situation, a kind of experiences i want to share to the audience.

I think all characters are right, no matter what they said. But it doesn't means that they can't co-exist. However if i wanted to propose one principal that i'm sure that no one can't refuse is, the fact that the war is wrong. There is no reason for that. It's just wrong like what you see the characters said in the final scene. The war make people killing each other. The reason why i said that it's wrong, try to look on the surface of this film, no one mentioned about the killing is right, but as soon as it levered to the war and then we can justify them. If there are right principle behind the reason to make a war, nobody can stop it and we have to go to the war. There is no way to say that killing people is right. It's the only principle i would like to state in the film.

Kato Masaya 

inStyle Asia: Why you picked the road trip story?

Hanno Yoshihiro: The protagonist is 20 years old boy named "Hikaru", he is living in black and white or monochrome world. Like any young boy, he seek to see what he never see yet. That led him go, for example photobook which is a reason he make a  decision to visit Nagasaki and Okinawa. It's true that the theme were depicted heavily and so serious, it's coming-of-age film that not locked the story by a certain age but it's a person of any age. I think, when you define what is coming-of-age, it's about people who have passion of living and passion of seeking. I wanted to tell that kind of story through a road trip movie.

Awitch

inStyle Asia: You said about War and Peace, LGBT, pollution, pandemic, bullied and the future, all are depicted in this film. What is your idea about that? 

Hanno Yoshihiro: Talking about future in year 2070 that you see on the third part in the film, i didn't want to make it like Sci-fi movie, so what you see is very possible. It was the results from our discussion and research by specialists. We can predict what gonna happened logically to the environment in the future. 

What we can witness is like, the subject of "microplastic" which changing our eco system, it enters the rivers and grass which were eaten by the birds and animals, and enters to the human bodies as well. It's really possible and what gonna happen when the world climate changed, for example: the temperature of the entire world dropped to 2℃. It's 0.5℃ alleviation around the water surface and rise to 5℃ on the land, warmer 5℃. That means people reside at many inhabitable area where there are no water disaster or Tsunami. As we see from the film, people living on the mountains where they can actually exist from any disasters. 

The scholars and specialists also predicted the situation in the future. if you have a privilege, you may living on the mountains, but if you are not, you will live at some shelter like we see in the film.

Director Hanno Yoshihiro on the red carpet in Tokyo International Film Festival 2022

inStyle Asia
: You showing the past present and the future. Why you pick the year 2009 and year 2070?

Hanno Yoshihiro: We had year 2009 and year 2070. On the second part i wanted the boy turns 20 years old right before the pandemic. So i have to calculate the year accurately from the story. It's really important for us to experience through the arts, paintings, photography by the real generation who perceived it. He try to get from that. That's why we back to year 2009 and go forward to 2070.

I presents it and touches it based on war, but i didn't want to tell the story about war. We are traveling back in time to make a period of peace. I wants to tell and shows the viewpoint at the present and reflects the past and the future, and tells what is peace exactly.

Also the locations we chose. For example, when Shogen guided them around Okinawa region, to see the paintings,  mirrors and somethings that people can't go and see. The cave they were in where Shogen talks about the soldiers who faces the troublesome and committed suicide. This is the place where you can actually go to see inside. He talks about the bodies inside there when they are touring, it's  something from the place where you can travel actually. 

Watching a boy's journey, it's something that the audience at our present day can  touch and go there by themselves. We focus particularly on this successful area. If you have a chance to visit this area, you can experience the same thing.

Shogen

inStyle Asia: When the film is showing in Japan nationwide? (Many oversea fans also wanted it happened)

Hanno Yoshihiro: The distribution's journey still not begin (laughing), still not decided it yet. We can work with certain distributors to make a film and then it became a business. Of course, it may have some limitations that postponed us. For this one we decided not to go that road and not to make it as a  business, which much more harder but i wanted to make a film that all members in my team would desire with and then see the possibilities what we can do with distributors, or if we can find another theatrical partners that people can watch the film. That part of the journey just had begun.

Gordon Maeda

inStyle Asia: Also, Maeda Gordon, the main character is so popular in Southeast Asia, like he have the fan groups in Thailand. Hopefully the film premiere in Thailand.

Hanno Yoshihiro: I never been visited Thailand before but i hope so, wanted to travel Thailand. I will go for sure.

inStyle Asia: Thank you so much.

Hanno Yoshihiro after the world premiere

Hanno Yoshihiro 

Hanno Yoshihiro 

Image: inStyle Asia


About the Film 

Title: Lightning Over Beyond (Japanese: 彼方の閃光)

Director: Hanno Yoshihiro

Cast: Gordon Maeda, Ikeuchi Hiroyuki, Shogen, Kato Masaya, Awich 

Premiere date: 25 October 2022

Spoken language: Japanese 








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