Many filmmakers say the difficulties of adapting a best-selling novel to the screen can be daunting. How about the challenge of adapting a story by a foreign best-selling author ("All God's Children Can Dance" by Haruki Murakami) from a country one had never visited (Japan) and to choose the project as a feature debut?
"As a first-time feature director, just the idea of taking on Murakami might not have been such a bright move," says Robert Logevall, who had nurtured a career in TV and film production design in LA before embarking on this project. "It is a tall task to use such layered and beautiful material to craft your film, on top of it being your first."
Logevall completed "All God's Children Can Dance" in 2007 — and the film finally makes it to Japanese shores this week, perhaps to set the scene for "Norwegian Wood" (directed by Anh Hung Tran), which opens Dec. 11.