Island of Dreams (夢の島 Yume no Shima)

“Expect great things in the future from this talented young filmmaker.”

- Jeph Wager, Crabtown Magazine

TORONTO PREMIERE

Co-presented with the Liaison of Independent Filmmaker of Toronto

Police detective Terayama and his partner Nomura mobilize after a remote mountain shack is blown up by remote control. The duo puzzle over why such a non-descript target was destroyed by such hi-tech. As they investigate they are pulled deeper into the world of eco-terrorism and we delve deeper into the psychology of the young man behind the bombing, a young foreign man named Alan. Working on the Island of Dreams, a man-made island in Tokyo Bay where all the refuse of the city is piled, has left Alan with an overwhelming hatred for modern life and the pollution it spews into the air. He feels no other choice but to take action, that is if Terayama and Nomura can’t stop him first.

With daily headlines about global warming and shadowy terrorists haunting us almost on a daily basis the plot of Tetsuichiro Tsuta’s Island of Dreams couldn’t be more contemporary, but in terms of execution the 25-year-old filmmaker’s feature debut couldn’t be more retro. Rejecting the use of digital video that so many of his filmmaking peers have embraced Tsuta shot, developed and edited his first feature film on 16mm film. He also styled the look and feel of Island of Dreams on such iconic Japanese filmmakers as Akira Kurosawa, Seijun Suzuki and Kinji Fukasaku.

Director: Tetsuichiro Tsuta

Producer: Tetsuichiro Tsuta

Screenplay: Tetsuichiro Tsuta

Cinematography: Yutaka Aoki

Music: Akira Kawabata

Cast: Makoto Adachi, Toshio Ando, Kakeru Hirasawa, Shigetaki Katayama, Ren Kido, Ikuro Kuraoka, Shigeru Morita, Tatsuro Nakamura, Atsushi Okuda, Hisae Tanakadate, Hiroko Uchida, Ako Wakamatsu

Released: 2009

Running time: 83 minutes

Trailer /  Official Website /  Review (J-Film Pow Wow)

Director’s Bio

Born in 1984 in Tokushima Prefecture Tetsuichiro Tsuta studied in the Department of Imaging Art at Tokyo Polytechnic University. Despite the high-tech nature of his studies he was determined that his debut feature film would be an homage not only to the style but the craft of filmmaking. Therefore Tsuta and his crew processed the 16mm film and edited Island of Dreams by hand. The effort paid off. The film won the Audience Award at the 31st annual Pia Film Festival.