Eddie Redmayne’s Kore-eda Hirokazu Film Is Still Being Scripted, Director Says at Busan

Eddie Redmayne‘s upcoming collaboration with Kore-eda Hirokazu is still at the screenplay stage, the Japanese filmmaker said Wednesday at a Busan International Film Festival press conference for his manga adaptation “Look Back.”

“Right now, I am writing the script,” Kore-eda said about the Searchlight Pictures film. “I cannot share specific plot details at this stage, but preparations are progressing smoothly. Please look forward to it.”

The director did not disclose a title. He expects to go public formally next year at the earliest and hopes to bring that film to Busan as well.

The festival has kept inviting Kore-eda back since his debut, and the opening ceremony even featured a piece of music named after him. “It is a city and a film festival for which I have exceptionally strong feelings,” he said.

He was joined by “Look Back” cast members Deguchi Natsuki, Makita Aju, Mori Nana and Ishikawa Ruka.

Kore-eda stumbled on the manga in a bookshop rather than through its serial run. “When I read it, I felt a shock like an impact,” he said. “It explored why people write stories, or in my case, why one makes films – that sort of creative impulse, or the heavy burden or karma that artists carry.”

On set, he avoided detailed scene-by-scene instruction and concentrated instead on the hours the four actors spent together and on how the town looked as the light and seasons shifted. “The cast understood that very well, and they appeared in front of the camera as individuals truly living inside that town,” he said.

As soon as the adaptation was confirmed, Kore-eda pushed for 35mm across all four seasons, in line with his longstanding conviction that anything that can be shot on celluloid ought to be. “Because there is no mindset of ‘we can fix it later,’ it creates a healthy tension for the cast and crew,” he said. “When that collective tension gathers, I believe it generates a magnetic field in that shooting location.”

The rotoscoped animation sequence late in the film stems from a single line. After a competition win, Fujino remarks that her dream was to see her manga animated, a comment that temporarily splits the two central characters. Kore-eda said the animation Fujino later makes stands in for a future the pair never got to share.

“Rather than conventional cel animation, rotoscoping sits halfway between live-action and drawn animation,” he said. “Having the characters move within the background art drawn by Kyoko felt like the most suitable form of expression.”

The film opens and closes on shots of Deguchi seen from behind. For the last of these, she said, Kore-eda instructed her, “Show Kyoko through your back.” After a long stretch shooting in Akita with her co-star, Deguchi found herself filming alone. “It felt like she was there, but not there… so with my heart feeling completely empty, I did that shot,” she said.

Makita, who plays Kyoko, is at Busan for the first time. Mori said she had done the Venice red carpet too, though the mood in Korea struck her as different. “There was a huge crowd, so I was nervous, but seeing everyone wave their hands made it so much fun,” she said.