"Torao" Director Kazuya Murayama Depicts the aftermath of an unsolved case starring a real former detective [Director's Interview Vol.242]

Many crime movies are based on actual murders, but director Kazuya Murayama's ``Torao'' is an unprecedented attempt. The lead role was played by 72-year-old Torao Nishimura, a real former detective who was investigating an unsolved case that occurred in Kanazawa in 1992. It depicts a man who is filled with regret for not being able to arrest the criminal in his 30-year career as a detective, and tries to confront the real criminal again... However, it is formatted more like a feature film than a documentary. How much is real and how much is fiction? We asked director Murayama, who made his feature-length debut with a controversial work in which truth and fiction intertwine in a complex way, what questions he is currently trying to ask.

Index

• Production committee = individual director
• As a boy growing up near the crime scene
• An encounter with a former detective who investigated the case
• Torao's way of life that deviates from fiction
• Lead actor with no acting experience
• The lead actress talks about the shooting scene without actors
• Another main character who is also the director's alter ego
• Reason for portraying the criminal of an unsolved case
• I believe that movies can change the world.

Production committee = individual director

Q: Director Murayama released “Falling” in 2017, and although it was a short film, it attracted a lot of attention when it was released in theaters. Are you self-distributing ``Torao'' as well as ``Falling''?

Murayama: When I released ``Falling'', I distributed it completely independently, booking the movie theaters myself and doing the advertising myself. ``Torao'' was screened at a film festival called TAMA NEW WAVE last year, and I ended up working with the publicity guy who saw it at that time, so it wasn't entirely independent. I didn't know anything about press previews being held before the movie's release, so I had the person help me with things like flyers and theater brochures.

“Torao” (C) “Torao” Production Committee

Q: However, this movie is an independent movie that you made with your own money, right?

Murayama: Yes. It's written as "Tora-otoko Production Committee," but the production committee is me personally. When I was working on ``Falling,'' there was a database of movies that couldn't be registered if © was an individual's name, so I decided to use the name of an organization instead, so I chose the Production Committee. Also, this time the story is about a movie, so if I did a poor job of crowdfunding and the movie was canceled, I wouldn't be in trouble, or rather, it would have been a restriction, so I didn't intend to do that from the beginning.

Q: Does that mean that you were anticipating the risk of some sort of conflict occurring due to the increase in the number of people investing?

Murayama: Yes. So it was 100% self-financed, and I felt like I was the producer myself.

As a boy growing up near the crime scene