Private Project

KONTORA

Guided by her grandfather's WWII-era diary, Sora searches for a mysterious trove in the wilderness of her hometown.
Meanwhile, a stranger who only walks backwards may prove to be the catalyst to put her broken family back together.

  • Anshul Chauhan
    Director
    Bad Poetry Tokyo
  • Anshul Chauhan
    Writer
    Bad Poetry Tokyo
  • Anshul Chauhan
    Producer
    Bad Poetry Tokyo
  • Mina Moteki
    Producer
    Bad Poetry Tokyo
  • Nobuaki Ebihara
    Producer
  • Wan Marui
    Key Cast
    "Sora"
  • Hidemasa Mase
    Key Cast
    "Back ward walking man"
  • Taichi Yamada
    Key Cast
    "Sora,s Father"
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Runtime:
    2 hours 24 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    February 28, 2019
  • Production Budget:
    20,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Japan
  • Country of Filming:
    Japan
  • Language:
    Japanese
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2:35:1
  • Film Color:
    Black & White
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Anshul Chauhan

Born in north India, Trained in a military academy, Started working as Animator in 2006 with TechnicolorIndia. Moved to Tokyo in 2011. Started working at Polygon Pictures on Tron Uprising. Worked in Animation studios like OLM pictures, Square Enix. In 2016 started making live action short films and eventually made my first feature film Bad Poetry Tokyo. And recently finished my second film KONTORA.

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Director Statement

Statement - It all started with an article I read about a man who lost his family in a car accident and started walking backwards, as if this would let him go back time. The story really stuck with me and I wanted to do something with it in my work. But as usual, the funds (or rather lack thereof) dictated what sort of film I could make, so I kept playing with the concept while I tried developing a script that would be feasible. It wasn't until I visited Gifu that things really started coming into place; I began to put together pieces from my own life and fit them into the script, namely certain stories I heard from my grandmother about reincarnation. Sora, the main character, exploring her late grandfather's military life through his diary, and a mysterious homeless man is literally walking backwards like the man in the article. Both are reflections of that same human desire to go back in time, to cleanse our regrets. It's a very personal film for me, because I also come from a military family and have been through the training. But military life isn't meant to be the main focus of the film. Rather, it's to explore the idea of going backwards, both mentally and physically, in order to find ourselves.

Sora is actually loosely based on a girl I know in real life. Schoolgirls as main characters are a common trope in Japanese films, but I wanted to create a role that stood out from the ones usually found in cliched love stories. The idea of a girl living in the comfortable modern age learning about the harsh reality of a time that is so far removed form her own was one I was eager to explore. As well, I was also inspired by videos I'd seen of exhibitions to discover war relics that had been buried - a practice my own grandfather took part in.

Though I wanted to keep the immaterial and spiritual aspects of the film more subtle, they are definitely there. I feel like these things are truly beyond our understanding, which means that there is a lot of room to play with them in fiction and make your own rules - or leave it open for interpretation.