Homesick Blues at Kansai

The short film Homesick Blues was screened in the 1st Annual Kansai International Film Festival in Osaka, Japan, where we shot the film.

Sponsored by Kansai Time Out magazine, the Kansai Film Festival is a celebration of Japanese culture in international cinema. Homesick Blues screened Aug. 25 at 7 p.m. in the Wabi Sabi 1 program. The Festival is at Planet Station, Morinomiya, Osaka.

Pop singer Zoey stars in the Homesick Blues short as Hiroko, an 18-year-old girl spending her final days in Osaka before she runs off to Chicago to sing the blues.

Filmmakers Junko Kajino and Ed M. Koziarski are at work on a revised feature-length Homesick Blues screenplay. We’re actively in development on Homesick Blues and will be shopping it at the IFP Market in New York, Sept. 16-22. The IFP Market is an annual networking, financing, production and distribution conference for independent film. Recent participants include Half Nelson, Maria Full of Grace, and Mad Hot Ballroom. We’re participating in the Market’s Emerging Narratives section with our in-progress feature film The First Breath of Tengan Rei (web site under construction).

We were invited to the IFP Market as fellows of the IFP Rough Cut Lab, which we attended in June. Rough Cut Lab fellows are the only narrative works in progress featured in the IFP Market, which otherwise includes narrative screenplays and in-progress documentaries. A clip from The First Breath of Tengan Rei will screen with other Rough Cut Lab fellows in two events Sept. 19: a private industry screening at the Angelika Theatre, and a rooftop screening open to Market participants.

The First Breath of Tengan Rei is almost finished! We’re well into dialogue editing at Experimental Sound Studio and music recording at Maestro-Matic with composer Mark Messing of Mucca Pazza and an amazing roster of musicians including guitarist Jim Becker of Califone and cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm.

Japanese actress Erika stars in The First Breath of Tengan Rei as a young Okinawan woman who kidnaps the teenage son of a U.S. Marine that was convicted of raping her ten years ago.

Erika plays the villainess in the live-action Japanese TV series Cutey Honey, based on the hit manga, anime and live action film. Cutey Honey premieres in October on Tokyo TV.