Friday, April 27, 2018

A dying father reunites with his son, two years later

It is hard to believe that it has been two years since Mr. Hata died.

I first met Mr. Hata in the autumn of 2016 while working on my documentary "Dying at Home", and over the six months that followed, I formed a deep friendship with him and his wife.  During the time I spent with Mr. Hata, I learned so much about family, love and loss, and I shared one of these lessons with the world via Twitter when just weeks before he died Mr. Hata reunited with the son he had not seen in 30 years.

I first published that story with photographs live on Twitter as the father and son reunited and then archived it a few days later on Storify with the title "Mr. Hata and T: a father and a son: a dying father reunites with his son after thirty years" (BLOG).  I then published two follow-up stories, one when Mr. Hata died three weeks later (BLOG) and then when he was buried (BLOG).  A few months later I was invited to write the cover story for the December issue of Number 1 Shimbun, the magazine of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan (READ), where I was able to more objectively reflect on the experience of documenting such an intimate and personal story in real time.  To mark the first year after his death, I published Mr. Hata's story in Japanese (BLOG).

This weekend will be the 2nd anniversary of Mr. Hata's death, and I am traveling to Fukushima today to attend the ceremony and visit his grave where I will remember all of the important lessons I learned and which continue to influence me.


Recently I learned that Storify will discontinue its service.  As I hope the story of Mr. Hata will be able to continue affecting and moving people, I have added a page on my website where these photodocumentaries will be archived.  The first three (all about Mr. Hata + the first one in Japanese) can now be found under the PHOTO DOC tab (HERE), where I plan to publish more when the right story calls out to be told in this format.

Thank you all for accompanying me on this journey.
Peace,
Ian

Thursday, April 26, 2018

"Boys" in Thailand, Switzerland and Germany!

While I have been fairly quiet on social media lately, it has been for a great reason- for the past several months I have been working on a couple of really exciting projects, and I am really looking forward to sharing more about them soon!

Meanwhile, the "Boys for Sale" (WEBSITE) team continues to work on arranging upcoming screenings of the documentary.  Earlier this month we were honoured to provide the film for a free community screening in Bangkok that was hosted by OUT BKK (INFO).


Next month, the film will be screening in Switzerland's La fête du slip, during which it will screen everyday during the three-day film festival (May 11, 12 and 13)!  More information can be found HERE.



And in June, we will be screening in Munich at the Nacht Scahatten Festival of BDSM & Fetish Films (!).  As I wrote on this blog earlier this year (HERE):

Of all the niche film festivals that documentaries I have produced have screened at (Japanese, ethnographic, Asian, LGBTQ, environmental, nuclear) I have been most amused by the number of pornographic film festivals to which "Boys for Sale" has been invited.  Among these was the film's Italian Premier in Turin's Fish and Chips Erotic Film Fest on January 20.  I have yet to attend one of these pornographic festivals, but our DOP/ producer Adrian "Uchujin" Storey attended the film's screening in the Porn Film Festival Berlin last October and wrote about it on his blog.  Not for the faint-hearted. ;)
 
More information about the dates/ times "Boys for Sale" at Nacht Scahatten will be posted on the film's website and social media accounts as soon as we receive it.  In the meantime, general information about the festival can be found HERE.


And we are looking forward to announcing our Indian premier at a festival in Mumbai in May as soon as the press embargo is lifted.

It has been almost a year since "Boys for Sale" held its World Premier in Germany (STORY).  Thank you all so much for your support and encouragement over this year!