Tomoko

- Drama (PG)

 

Director: Nick Norman-Butler

Country: Japan

Length: 6min 47sec

Language: Japanese

Subtitle: English

Completed date: 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Tomoko' is based on a true story from Japan in which a homeless woman shared an apartment with a rich businessman for a year, without his knowledge. It shows how rich and poor can exist in close proximity yet never meet.

 

Director:  Nick Norman-Butler

Writer: Nick Norman-Butler

Producer: Louise Palmkvist, Paula Crickard

DP: Ewan Mulligan

Editor: Nadeem Khan

Cast:  Dai Tabuchi, Masayo Aizawa

​

Film Festivals Appearances:

The Shortest Nights (UK)

​

Director's statement:

Tomoko is inspired by a newspaper article from Japan written in 2008 that described how a homeless woman shared an apartment with a wealthy businessman for over a year without his knowledge. Nor was this an isolated event as several more cases were reported at the time in Tokyo and Fukuoka.

 

The film takes an experimental approach to explore the themes in this story of inequality and social isolation and plays with several ideas: Why did Tomoko choose this man’s apartment? How did she manage to remain undetected on a daily basis? Who was the male owner of the flat and most interestingly: did he know she was there all along but pretend to be ignorant?

 

For Director Nick Norman-Butler, who is branching out from a career in documentaries, this last point is the most telling. The two characters in Tomoko could live well together: there is enough space in the apartment and they are both lonely but their fear of each other keeps them apart even under close proximity.