Shimaguni Konjo

Fiction and documentary merge in this film about a first teenage love and a scandalous affair I lived myself. The film describes the life of two families in Fukushima, the Japanese province where I was born and still live in. a private tutor (my profession), in charge of training students for the entrance exam to the university, is contacted by a mother who has some trouble with her daughter. But he soon becomes the one in trouble, when he is found by the husband in bed with that woman. The whole family gets mixed up in the affair. And the two lovers are unaware that the tutor’s son is in live with the «problem daughter». When the family interferes, those who are obsessed with keeping up appearances turn ridiculous. I wrote this story hoping that the meanness and lack of the cramped life of the Japanese people – who never look for a solution – would show through this vaudeville. Fumiki Watanabe