At one point or another, every filmmaker, producer or journalist has dreamed about freeing themselves from the financial restraints of media production. The team behind "We Are All Radioactive" — a documentary about a community of surfers and fishermen in the small tsunami-stricken town of Motoyoshi in Miyagi Prefecture — have tried a new way to achieve that dream. Lisa Katayama, a journalist and the producer and director of "We Are All Radioactive," initially went to Motoyoshi with the idea of writing a feature article about the small community trying to get back on its feet, but she and her partners ended up taking a completely different approach in terms of storytelling and funding.
"Jason Wishnow, a filmmaker, and I were travelling in Asia at the time of the quake and we heard about the community in Motoyoshi from a friend. We went there together and brought a video camera and a sound recorder, so we were really armed to do anything," Katayama tells The Japan Times during a recent interview.
"In Motoyoshi we found this great story with great characters. We thought about making a documentary, but that seemed like a huge undertaking. So we came up with a new idea," she says.