"10 Years to Live" Director Michito Fujii's "Unreasonableness" to shoot images that will last 100 years from now [Director's Interview Vol.187]

Supported by the presence of coach Iñárritu, whom I respect

Q: Your resistance to so-called "life expectancy stories" and your commitment to realism can be felt throughout this film.

Fujii: I understand why "remaining life stories" have a certain degree of framework and are easy to control, and why they are easy to commercialize. But I just can't accept it. Humans aren't that simple, and there's the fear of being templated and packaged as "remaining life stories"... In short, I had a lot of conflict about whether I would have to be swallowed up by that if I wanted to enter the major leagues. That seems to have changed with the comments of the family and the producer.

I love Alejandro González Iñárritu's " Biutiful " (2010), which is also about life expectancy. A director I love also made a film about "life." That was also a big help.

“10 Years to Live” ©2022 Movie “10 Years to Live” Production Committee

Q: In this work, the topic of sickness and injury benefits comes up from the beginning, and I was impressed by how it clearly depicts what it means to "live in society."

Fujii: The most important thing was the human emotion of Mari (Nana Komatsu). What I thought was so destined about this movie was that the entire nation has been living a depressing life for the past two years.

I hope that viewers can feel through Mari's back the things we overlooked in our daily lives until the COVID-19 pandemic, and the negative emotions we have felt every day for the past two years. I also hope that the role of film is to help people regain a sense of what it means to be alive, the four seasons, and the warmth of ordinary people. My previous works have had strong underlying feelings of anger toward society and "resistance," but the mental attributes of "10 Years Left to Live" are similar to " The Brightest Roof in the Universe ."

Q: There are some similarities to "Nameless Piece: Anna" from " DIVOC-12 ."

Fujii: I think you're right. I feel that "Nameless Story: Anna" was a work that I could only have written because of "10 Years Left to Live," and "Nameless Story: Anna" may be a repurposing of the emotions I felt as I faced Mari's life up until June 2021.

All movie directors are skeptical about the quality of their work.