As an overseas coordinator living in the television industry, Momoko Nishiyama has some unexpected doubts during her day to day work. In this time when there’s a lot of clamoring for diversity, what is the true meaning of diversity and can she really understand it? There ought be all kinds of opinions, not just everyone being the same ‘because LGBTQ’.
Nishiyama makes the decision to meet people who have been categorized as LGBTQ and to ask them for their accumulated thoughts and self-reflections. Is the word ‘minority’ being used correctly? What do they think? What expressions do they hate? Are they being accepted?
Starting with friends, Nishiyama asks 9 people some candid questions and while asking herself about ‘being’, starts to have further doubts. She starts covering news with the desire to make society even a little bit more equal, but are their actions more than simply meddling?
In repeating the conversation, the boundary between various distinct words, “LGBTQ”, “Minority”, “Man and Woman” becomes increasingly unclear.
From the Director: Aim in Making this Film
This time, the impetus for this production was a comment in a TV show production meeting that Nishiyama attended: “We don’t really touch on conversations about gay people…”. I remember being surprised, thinking “Gay people are a special category?”, and feeling a big sense of uneasiness. I feel “”The TV industry unfortunately is behind other countries””.
Aren’t we applying various things to the ordinary image of a “category” and talking too much about that image? There’s a lot clamoring for diversity these days, but how much do we really understand what the essence of diversity?
What became most important while we were making this film was having various people that had various different opinions towards, for example, gay people. There is a diversity by which gender too cannot be simply marked off. However, I believe that the answer is each person simply being themselves. If we can personally see that way of living and do away with the categories that we were unconsciously divided into, then I think that many things will become much freer.
I focused on listening carefully to as many people as I could. Then, I myself started to believe in the poetic strength and beauty of the word Being.
Director：Moe WADA / Producer,Cast：Momoko NISHIYAMA
2020｜Japan｜94 min｜Japanese, English
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[Documentary] / [LGBTQ+]
