The once-arduous process of becoming a movie director in Japan — involving university film studies and years of assistant-director serfdom — has been drastically simplified. Technically, you can now shoot a movie on your smartphone and edit it on your laptop, with your name in the credits after "Director."
But to truly earn the title, someone still has to believe your work is worth presenting, be it an indie distributor or festival programmer. A "world premiere" in your parent's living room doesn't count. And pardon me for being old school, but a premiere on YouTube doesn't either.
By that standard, Ryugo Nakamura is the real directing deal, not to mention a cinematic prodigy: Born in Okinawa in 1996, he debuted as a director in 2010 with the locally set feature "The Catcher on the Shore" ("Yagi no Boken"), which opened in theaters nationwide to critical acclaim..