MADE

- Drama (NC16)

 

Director: Norbert Schoerner 

Country: Japan

Length: 20min

Language: Japanese, English

Subtitle:  Japanese, English

Completed date: 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Made’ follows the intriguing double life of a young Japanese woman in Tokyo. When a brief encounter with a foreigner threatens to unravel her hidden existence she does everything it takes to protect her secrets.

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DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

In Japan there is a subculture referred to as ‘cosplay’ – becoming involved in it gives people a chance to live out an alternative being through engaging in transgressive, costume-based fantasies.

 

What inspired me about the story of Minako is this very idea – of how a double life allows people to escape from their unexceptional daily existence. But once the various lives become more complex, an important question emerges: which is the real one? Is it a matter of choice, or of circumstance, as to which life takes over and dominates the other?

 

Our story’s main character Minako is exactly in this situation. She seems to long for the normalcy of a life with her new boyfriend and the comforts that come with it, but she is too anchored in her other life – her secret facade as a maid, which feeds her darker desires.

 

Both of the male protagonists of the film are foreigners (‘gaijin’) in Tokyo. There is a cliché that, on their first trip eastbound, many men are often excited by a formulaic idea of female Asian eroticism. Over the years during my travels to Japan I have encountered quite a few examples of both of the two male characters portrayed. The time I have spent in Tokyo as a gaijin has given me a paradoxical perspective on the subject, which is the foundation for both my visual and narrative interpretation of the story.

 

– Norbert Schoerner, London 2014

 

Film Festival Awards:

• 2014 Cannes Festival Short Film Corner

• 2014 East End Film Festival

• 2014 London Independent Film Festival