Christopher Makoto Yogi
August at Akiko's Christopher Makoto Yogi (2018)
Christopher Makoto Yogi is an American screenwriter, producer, editor, and film director. He received his MFA from USC School of Cinematic Arts—Layover, on the Shore, his thesis film, won Best Film at the Big Island Film Festival. A Sundance Institute fellow and a Time Warner fellow, Makoto Yogi's debut feature, August at Akiko's, premiered at IFFR - Rotterdam International Film Festival; IndieMemphis, where it won a Special Jury Award; Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, where it won Best Cinematography; and was was named among Richard Brody's Best Movies of 2019.
In an exclusive interview for Filmatique, Christopher Makoto Yogi discusses movement and transience, a suspicion of the image, shooting with the local Japanese community in Hawai'i, and his next project.
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FILMATIQUE: August at Akiko's traces the return of Alex, a 30-something saxophonist, to Hawaii, ostensibly to find his grandparents. While this objective proves futile, Alex cultivates several other relationships on the island, most notably with Akiko, an older woman who runs a Buddhist meditation center and bed and breakfast. How did you develop the story for this, your first feature?
CHRISTOPHER MAKOTO YOGI: The journey to August at Akiko's began on a location scout for another feature film. My partner and producer Sarah Kim and I flew to Hawai'i Island in search of pieces of Hawai'i that reminded me of my childhood. I'd been born and raised in Honolulu, but with all of the rapid development and changes, little of it reminded me of my youth. So we journeyed to Hawai'i Island, or the Big Island. On the suggestion of a filmmaker friend, Ciara Lacy, we stayed with her godmother, Akiko Masuda, at her Buddhist bed and breakfast. Located in an isolated area of the island, Akiko's Bed and Breakfast was situated in a small ghost town with a dwindling population, surrounded by wild jungle. I was immediately in love. In love with the place, the people, with Akiko and her spirit. Something within me was awakened.
Months later, I was researching my family lineage and discovered that both sides of my family could trace their roots to this area of Hawai'i Island. I had no idea. This area was where my great-great-grandfather landed when he immigrated from Japan. On the other side of my family, my grandmother was born one town over from Akiko's. This was it: I knew that I had to return and make something that explored these unknown roots, mysterious and deep, that had been stirred when I was there. I quickly wrote a treatment that involved a musician and Akiko. I reached out to Alex Zhang Hungtai, sent him the idea and asked if he'd like to be involved. He agreed and we discussed the idea together. I called Akiko and told her the idea and we had conversations about it as well. From there, the story emerged. Within six months, we were shooting our film.
FLMTQ: The character of Alex is quite ambiguous, inscrutable—the circumstances of his arrival remain unclear, as do his plans for the future. Rather than expositional dialogue, we encounter kernels from his life incrementally, as he remains suspended in a vast and fluid present. What influences, if any, did you draw upon in articulating this character, and how did you collaborate with Alex Zhang Hungtai to establish these contours?
CMY: We developed the idea together. My initial idea had been written in short story format, almost a prose poem of sorts, that captured not so much the story of the musician but more the feelings I wanted to explore. Homecoming was a big theme for us. Alex is around my age and we'd both left Hawai'i around the same time; so we often discussed these ideas of home, of islands, of family, of movement and transience. But also of the trauma that remains within the land. We also discussed art and the creative process, working as Asian American artists, and the importance of improvisation and letting go.
Often our conversations would be philosophical in nature and I think that from this we knew what we wanted the film to feel like and what processes we wanted the film to explore. Looking back, I think that these conversations were not only establishing a thematic core for us both but also developing a trust in one another as artists and humans. While we were shooting, we discussed the character everyday—the character's backstory, feelings, etc.—but knowing full well that a lot of this would not make it into the film explicitly. Ultimately, the character ends up being a hybrid of the two of us. Alex's search for his grandparents mimics my own search for roots in this place, trying to learn about this island I didn't know I had a connection to, while the character's emotional homecoming is Alex's readjustment to a place that had raised him and yet he had been away from for almost a decade.
August at Akiko's, Christopher Makoto Yogi (2018)
FLMTQ: Much of the story, be it emotional or narrative undercurrents, is evoked via sound—the unrelenting blare of a car horn, clinging bells, soft wind through the trees. As the film scholar Laura U. Marks has noted, cinema that mobilizes a turn to the senses can often be read as political, insofar as it unsettles the ocularcentric storytelling paradigms that tend to privilege the representation of certain bodies, while occluding others. What link, if any, do you sense between the film's emphasis on soundscapes, their ability to communicate what perhaps images cannot, and the experiences of the Japanese community in Hawai'i?
CMY: I love this Laura U. Marks idea, thank you for sharing it with me! I've always thought that the aural was much more important to cinema than the visual. Personally, I distrust the apparent concrete nature of the image, and a thought that often haunts me is how easily our minds immediately conclude that an image is truth. It can make filmmaking very fraught! Sound on the other hand makes us question, leaves us wondering, cuts to our subconscious in ways that can be completely mysterious.
For this film in particular, we knew that it was going to be a mostly aural experience because Alex is a musician. We decided that instead of Alex speaking his story, his emotions, his past, we'd communicate this through music. And also: living in nature, as we were while shooting, you immediately realize that nature is LOUD. Very far from the peaceful, tranquil idea one has when thinking about removing oneself from society. So the sounds of the island would be our way of transporting the audience to this place and grabbing their subconscious, shaking them out of conventional modes of storytelling. Our sound designer Sung Rok Choi is truly masterful and together we really leaned into these ideas. I hadn't thought of sound in relation to the Japanese experience in Hawai'i, but one thing that occurs to me now is that we are not an overly chatty bunch. So silence and stillness is maybe a way of staying true to this experience.
FLMTQ: Can you discuss your casting process more broadly? What form did your collaboration take with local communities, on and off set, while filming?
CMY: Our producer Sarah Kim and I did the casting together and we were just looking for people on the island who intrigued us, who had a great story, who had a wonderful spirit or power within them. Before we started shooting we spent a couple of weeks embedding ourselves within the community, learning, listening, volunteering— just being there. Keeping our hearts and na'au open. Sometimes Akiko would take us around, sometimes we'd explore on our own. Meanwhile, I was asking around about my family to see if anyone knew them. We had so many moving, memorable experiences. Once we started shooting, we shot a lot of folks who did not make the final cut of the film, so many different stories and faces that intersect with Alex. Even though these scenes didn't make the final film, the spirit of these scenes remains in a deep, deep way.
August at Akiko's, Christopher Makoto Yogi (2018)