Andante: Kizuna

• Featuring: Yosuke Iijima, Mihoko Zurushima, Uedada, Goki Kazama, Amanda
• Produced at: Waseda University, School of International Liberal Studies
• Special thanks to: Rosemarie Bernard, PwC Japan

In 2011, the Japanese word "kizuna(絆)" has been chosen as "kanji of the year", a difficult year dominated by the earthquake and tsunami. In English, the kanji means bonds or connections between people.

Andante: Kizuna was made during my year-long study in Tokyo between 2012 and 2013 for an urban anthropology class. The documentary captured the rigid Japanese "salary-man" work culture and its dominating effects on individuals' personal life and emotional wellbeing, especially at a delicate post natural disaster moment when people -- burdened with collective anxieties -- had started longing for companionship, bonds and support from their personal networks both on the intimate family level and the general societal level.