At the Tokyo International Film Festival, Japanese filmmaker Chihiro Amano reflects on how her experience of motherhood led her to direct the relationship drama Sato and Sato.
Every year at the Tokyo International Film Festival, the programming team makes an effort to champion emerging talent that challenges preconceived notions of what Japanese cinema is or can be. Through their Women’s Empowerment and Nippon Cinema Now strands, the festival often showcases new work from female and non-binary filmmakers who bring their unique worldview to the big screen. At the 2025 edition of the festival, three of the most exciting filmmakers showing their work were Mika Imai (Kiiroiko), Chihiro Amano (Sato and Sato) and Keiko Tsuruoka (Saikai Paradise) whose films confront notions of love, family, belonging and home. Amid the rush of the festival, we caught up with these three trailblazing filmmakers to find out what informs their creative practice.
Chihiro Amano
Sato and Sato traces one couple’s relationship over the span of fifteen years, from romance blossoming between Sachi and Tamotsu at university to the trials and tribulations that develop with marriage, careers and parenthood.
Where did your passion and interest in filmmaking begin, and how did that transform into making films?
Amano: I was always very fond of making things when I was a child, but I never really was into movies. Until I was in university, I saw maybe one big Hollywood tentpole a year, and that was about it. I never realized people could actually make movies.
Right around the time I was about to finish college, I started watching movies at midnight in Japan, because on Japanese television they would play movies in the middle of the night. There were these kind of not-fancy movies, very far from the Hollywood big titles like Titanic. Even though they weren't fancy, they were really interesting. I became quite interested. I even saw La Strada by Fellini. That was when I started to think, "Oh, maybe it's possible for me to become involved in movies. Is it the kind of thing where even I could get a shot?" I think that was the first inspiration for me.
Because of that feeling, I joined the movie club at school, where we could get together with friends and make our own movies. That part was really fun, and we also had a chance to screen [our films] for people, and then they would give us their feedback and their impressions. That was so stimulating, I felt I wanted to continue.
After university you continued filmmaking. How difficult did you find it to pursue filmmaking as a career? In the UK and in America, and a lot of the world, it is still very difficult to be a female filmmaker. My perception of the Japanese film industry is that it's the same, quite difficult to break through as a woman. What were some of the challenges you faced as a female filmmaker?
It's been very hard the whole time, but I think in terms of being a woman, I was doing my own independent films, I was starting to win awards in domestic film festivals and film presentations, and I was finally at a point where I could call it my job. I was actually being paid to make movies when I got married and I got pregnant. I assumed after I had the baby, I could come back and continue to make movies. There was a female producer who was very caring of me and trying to make the movie industry better. I told her that I'd gotten pregnant and she was really shocked. Like, "What? Well, Amano-san, you've made it this far and now you're not going to be able to make any more movies." I didn't understand because I felt once I have the baby, I'm still me, I'm still going to be able to continue my work. But in reality, when I had the baby, I stopped getting work completely. I think people thought, "Oh, she's a woman. She now has a baby, so we can't ask her to do work."
Until then, I think there were certain proposals that came my way because I was a young woman. I was a female among many male directors and maybe that was why I would get certain opportunities. But once I fell out of that category, those proposals were no longer coming to me. I was working freelance. All of the daycare centers in Japan were full and I couldn't, as a freelancer, get a spot for my child. If I couldn't get my kid into daycare, I couldn't write scripts; if I couldn't write scripts, I couldn't make movies—it was like I hit a wall in all directions. It was really tough.
The film deals very directly with the idea that, as a woman, once you have a child, what are your responsibilities, and the idea of going back to work. It's very shocking for people in the film that Sachi goes back to work and Tamotsu stays home with the baby. I was going to ask if it was inspired by your experiences, but it sounds like these kinds of issues may have been part of your own life. Is that the case?
Yes, indeed. If you were to think about the movie, I was more Tamotsu because I felt like my world had come to a standstill. I could only rely on my husband for our livelihood; I would stay at home taking care of domestic chores and raising the baby. I felt like I had been abandoned by society. My identity was shaken. I was frustrated and under a lot of stress, and I would take it out on my husband. But there was also a realization. After a while I was able to put my kid in daycare, and gradually I was able to start my work again. It was time to make a movie. If you shoot a movie, you have to be away and work hard for one to two months. During that time, my husband would have to do the household chores and raise the baby. I was away from morning till night, working outside [the home]—then I became Sachi.
That was my experience: I'm working outside [the home], I come home to my husband, who's done the house chores and been raising the baby the whole day, and he's basically a mirror of my previous self, looking at me resentfully. Then I realised it's not about gender; it's about your position. If you take on a different position, then you see completely different scenery. I think having those opposing experiences is what led to this movie.
One of the things I found so interesting about the characters is, like you said, it's not so much about gender, but it's about the way they both tie their identities to their roles in the household. I found their parents' perceptions interesting, the little comments they make to their children about who should be earning money and who should be staying home with the baby. Do you still feel a disconnect between older and younger generations about expectations around careers and family life?
I had my kid a little over 10 years ago. Comparing then to now, I feel like values in Japan are changing greatly. We're at a time of transition. The older generations still have the older values, but the younger generation is definitely embracing new values, which means that there is such a diversity of viewpoints based on generation, profile, whether you live in the countryside or in the city. Depending on where you are, there are so many different values you can have in your life. That's actually one of the reasons why I wanted to depict many different types of characters, so all of the different types of people out there could relate to somebody.
Yes, I thought it was really important that Tamotsu's family are from Fukushima, because outside of Japan, we heard about the disaster but then nothing since; it was really interesting to see how that community is still trying to recover from that incident. I was curious to know what inspired that little detail of the plot, because it was so unusual to me.
The screenplay was written by Kumagai Madoka, who's married to a man who's from Fukushima. That became one of the elements of the male character when I was developing him. After the earthquake there were a lot of unfounded rumors about cars that were made in Fukushima that caused a great deal of damage, and I think that's still probably happening. I know that there are lots of people who are truly suffering. This is a difficult issue to tackle, because I didn't want to put too much of a spotlight on it. I know it's a sensitive issue, and it's very difficult to figure out the right treatment of it, but I thought I could bring it in as one of the background hardships that the family is facing.
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