Interview with Kosuke Okahara, director of blue affair

How did you get the inspiration for blue affair?
blue affair is my long-term project in a town called Koza, in Okinawa. This is a photographic project, but I was quite aware this should be made as a video art/film (photography can end up different form not only photographic prints or books) . As the scenes I have experienced while photographing, somehow I felt like I was in a film. Though the pictures are simple daily life, the experiences I had in a town was quite strong and it started infiltrating in my dreams. Thinking of the truth of what I was doing in town, I felt this is not really a documentary of daily life in the town, but more like my personal relationship with the town and people as my intention was not really “to tell the story” but more like simply experiencing the people and the town. So I felt I wanted to do something more honest rather than “telling the story” which wasn’t really my intention at the beginning.

How much were you interested in the question of falling asleep and dreaming process?
It was not my interest, the scenes I experienced and photographed started appearing in my dreams. That’s why I made this film in this particular way.

Why did you choose to use black and white colors and successions of stills ruptured in their time sequences?
It was simply my medium. I was taking pictures with B&W which I love. It’s simple, but as it cannot use the power of color, it can be quite weak when nothing in it. Also when thinking of dreams, sometimes color become too concrete and it takes away dreamy feelings. So at the end, at least for myself, B&W worked.

How did you build up the rhythm and worked on the additional sounds?
The rhythm of the film came from the idea of having dreams that are from the scenes I have photographed. When you have dreams sometimes it doesn’t make sense, just like that, the scenes I have photographed were actually surreal. Then those surreal moments appeared in my dreams over and over again. And every time I have dreams of the time I spent in the town, it made me feel wanting to go back to the town. At the end of the film, it is like my will, it’s like I want to go back to the town and disappear from the reality.

What was your interest in moving or/and blurred stills?
I am not really interested in using blurred stills, sometimes it happened because it was simply dark. So if you look at entire films, most of pictures are not blurred. But as I was photographing mostly at night, it happened sometimes. What I like about photography is something “accidental”. You don’t quite know until you actually develop your films. Sometimes there are bad surprises. Sometimes there are good surprises. I really enjoy that kind of magic in photography. It is important to try to express yourself, but if the expression becomes too intentional, there is something genuine, or magic could disappear. With this work, I really replied on so much of magic as I wanted to get out of editorial kind of documentary works which lots of people do and seek more pure form of documentary/ or being more honest as a photographer. This will be too long to talk, but one of the reasons why this work was born is because of the doubt I had on the word “documentary” practiced today.

What do you think the future holds for short films?
As I am very new (actually first time) to short film, and I am not even a film director, but photographer, I don’t have much idea, but I found the medium gave me so many possibilities. I only used photos I took, and audios I recorded. In order to realize the “dream” that I wanted to express, the format of short film expanded the ways I wanted to express even within just 15 minutes. I didn’t realize how much I could do with the medium of short film at the beginning.

If we were to go back into lockdown, what cultural delights would you recommend to alleviate our boredom?
I think it is a good time to actually make something while at home not only consuming something cultural. Cultural things are surely important, but not only as a consumer, but to practice something makes your time more positive. Just cutting paper or making maybe film with your phone etc. There are many cultural things you can enjoy at home. I was editing this film, but same times I was actually making some boxes for the special edition of my new book (which is the same title as my short film) which was fun.

blue affair is part of Lab Competition L4.