Festivals - Sundance Film Festival 2021 : I was a simple man will have its world premiere

By Mulder, 27 december 2020

The rushing wind on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawai'i, never stops. It constantly rustles the leaves outside Masao’s house, providing a balmy sonic backdrop. Nature is both a driving force and a spiritual indicator in I Was a Simple Man, the second feature from writer-director Christopher Makoto Yogi. When Masao is healthy, his plants thrive; when a terminal sickness encroaches, the plants wither and die. The island’s ambient noises—the waves, the wind, the birds—thread through the film’s time-shifting chapters, from the pre-World War II sugar plantations of Oahu to Hawai'i statehood to the present gentrification of Honolulu.

As Masao gets sicker, he is visited by ghosts of his past, including his wife, Grace (Constance Wu), who helps shepherd him into the beyond. Part dream, part family history, I Was a Simple Man feels both achingly intimate and incredibly expansive. The director’s restrained filmmaking grounds the film in Hawaii’s pastoral landscape, while match cuts and surrealistic editing alter time and space, connecting and disrupting past and present and one family’s relationship to their patriarch—and the place they call home

Synopsis :
A family in Hawai'i faces the imminent death of their eldest as the ghosts of the past haunt the countryside.

I was a simple man (USA)
Written and directed by Christopher Makoto Yogi
Produced by Sarah S. Kim, Christopher Makoto Yogi, Matthew Petock, Yamato Cibulka
Executive Producers : Ken Whitney, Elizabeth Reiko Kubota Whitney, Ric Galindez, Roy Tijoe, Eric Nyari
Associate Producers : David Chan, Cris Clatte, James Blakemore, Joshua Garcia, Jason Cutinella
Starring Steve Iwamoto, Constance Wu, Kanoa Goo, Chanel Akiko Hirai, Tim Chiou, Boonyanudh Jiyarom
Music by Alex Zhang Hungtai, Pierre Guerineau
Cinematography : Eunsoo Cho
Production Designer : Rocio Gimenez
Costume Designer : Mai Yamazaki
Casting Directors : Eyde Belasco, Akemi Bischoff
Sound Design/Mix : Sung Rok Choi
Distributed by Talk Tree (http://www.iwasasimpleman.com)
Release date : January 29, 2021 (Sundance)
Running time : 100 minutes

Premiere : jan. 29 - 9:00pm // Second screening : jan. 31 - 4:00pm (local time)

(Source : press release)