Blue Imagine (2024)

Interesting facts

Blue Imagine is a 2024 Japanese drama film directed by Urara Matsubayashi, starring Mayu Yamaguchi, Asuka Kawatoko and Yui Kitamura. Matsubayashi's directorial debut, it follows an actress, who comes to a safe house for women have been sexually abused, the titular restaurant and communal living space, after she is assaulted by a prominent director. The film is partly based on Matsubayashi's own experiences.

Production

Work on the project, which was actress Urara Matsubayashi's directorial debut, started in 2022. The film's "starting point" was her own experiences in the Japanese entertainment industry. Matsubayashi had previously appeared in the films The Hungry Lion and Kamata Prelude, both of which dealt with the topic of sexual abuse. She was also a producer on the latter.

Matsubayashi had Goto interview her on her time in the industry for the film. Goto also did her own research on the subject by reading many accounts of sexual abuse. In writing the screenplay, she and Goto chose to focus on a variety of issues from beyond sexual abuse and the entertainment industry, such as discrimination against Filipino women in Japan and sexual abuse against men.

Many of the male actors who Matsubayashi approached refused to appear in the film as they believed that the film would be difficult to promote due to her involvement, Eventually, she offered the role of the director to Makoto Shinada, her co-star in The Hungry Lion, who accepted the offer. She also approached cinematographer Isao Ishii and lighting specialist Akio Osaka, who had worked on her debut film 1+1=11, to work on this film.

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