Famous!

Around this time last year, I told you that a friend of mine and I had been engaged as extras for a Japanese movie. Well, I can now officially talk about it since I just found out that it was released last Saturday! The movie is called Koto in Japanese (in English: The Old Capital) and it is a sequel to the novel of the same name by Yasunari Kawabata. Now the two sisters of Kawabata’s novel are grown and have children of their own who have their own struggles with Japanese society. Part of the movie is set in France, while the novel takes place entirely in Kyoto and its northern outskirts.

I have not seen the result yet, but another friend went to the cinema on Saturday, and he said that both my friend and I are featuring very prominently in a scene that is set in an old house in Kyoto. If you take a look at the poster to the right, we were in a scene with the actor in the blue kimono to the far right. Apparently he is very famous in Japan – does that mean I’m now officially famous too? 😉 We should be in at least two more scenes in the movie, somewhere in the background, but I cannot tell for sure until I have seen it – and this will take a while. My Japanese is not good enough to watch movies or TV yet (and fully understand what’s going on), so I will have to wait until there are English subtitles. The movie has already won a prize in the Kyoto Historical Film Festival (I think), and it may be sent to international Film Festivals as well – and that’s usually where the subtitles are made. I will see it eventually though, I’m sure.