CHRIS MAKOTO YOGI

august at akiko’s will be leaving @criterioncollection channel this month. if you haven’t seen it yet, check it out while you can. & if you like it, tell your friends. still can’t believe this was 5 years ago, august 2017. a genuinely life changing process that altered the way i think about how one crafts both a film and a life. to everyone who was involved, i cannot thank you enough for the teachings that continue to give, year after year

winter in color // HI & LA ‘21 - ‘22

thank you, friends, for indulging me this month as i’ve looked back at the short films i’ve made over the years. the final piece now playing on the @criterioncollection channel: a still place (2020) i made this during the spring of 2020. out in new york, sheltering in place as we all were, i was deeply homesick, and found myself looking over footage that we’d shot in 2017 during the making of @augustatakikos , returning again and again to one of the meditation sessions we’d filmed with Akiko Masuda one early morning. the sounds, the light, the stillness, all of it was just so right. it made me feel ok. i cut it together, worked on the sound, and shared it with a few friends, hoping that they too would find some solace in this piece. huge thank you to Akiko and the ancestors of Wailea Village. Zen Guest As a guest, leave no Trace, No Face. In fact leave only a "presence," a feeling that for a moment you loved a place so deeply that both you and the place were transformed, and both became more beautiful, more natural and inseparably one. 👁

now playing on the @criterioncollection channel: OCCASIONALLY, I SAW GLIMPSES OF HAWAI‘I (2016) the idea of hawai‘i as told by hollywood is one that i’d mostly ignored growing up. when you live in a place, why indulge in outsiders’ ideas of the place? the assumption is they’d get it wrong. and living in the islands, you’re already inundated by the ideas that the tourism industry is selling, it’s in the air, all the time: idealized exotic paradise, america but also not-america. in 2015, out of curiosity, i decided to take a peek at this hollywood narrative, to take a look at the way hawai‘i has previously been shown on screen. what did other filmmakers see? what didn’t they see? so i watched as many films as i could get my hands on. almost 40 features. and what i saw was both surprising and expected. at some point around film #20, i decided to compile what i was seeing into a film: a cross between an essay film and a prose poem, made up of images and sounds from these works. @alsolikelife , a film maker and thinker i deeply admire, was a huge supporter of this project. @inellipsis @tysanga @ciaraleilacy and @kaualena gave me feedback on pieces, edits, telling me what jumped out at them. but the most surprising thing occurred when i premiered this film at the @hiffhawaii : local audience members came up to me and expressed their deep love and nostalgia for all of these images and sounds. these cinematic snatches were woven into their lived in memories of home… cinema as a collective memory is something i’ve wrestled with, the fraught responsibility of making movies of any kind. no answers yet, but the questions continue to pile up. 👁

now playing on the @criterioncollection channel: SUDDENLY HONOLULU (2015 & 2016) a pair of sketches that pushed me to look at O‘ahu in the present tense. nostalgia plays such a large role in the work that i found myself wanting to capture the island in the present tense. but also in a way that communicated what was underneath the current. transitions all around. to see what was there and what was not. to see the old anew. i’d close my eyes, take a few long deep breaths, then open and shoot. 👁

@iwasasimpleman original soundtrack by @lastlizard808 & @feu.st.antoine out now 🐉 #repost @editionsappaerent ・・・ Alex Zhang Hungtai & Pierre Guerineau’s soundtrack for Christopher Makoto Yogi’s film “I Was a Simple Man” is out in full today! You can stream and purchase on Bandcamp (and everywhere else!)—link in bio. You can watch the film on @criterioncollection. Many thanks and much love to @lastlizard808 @feu.st.antoine @makotoyogi for entrusting this project to us. 💚🌿🌱🌴 💿 news: CDs are on their way — NA customers can grab them from our Bandcamp but @boomkatonline will also have a stack for anyone in EU-ish.

now showing on @criterioncollection channel: MAKOTO: OR HONESTY (2013) in 2013, i had the great opportunity to take part in @vcmediaorg ‘s armed with a camera fellowship. VC has a long, storied, and fascinating history dating back to the 1970s (look it up, seriously) and the community building and archival work that VC does today is essential. i was stoked to be part of this program. in the spirit of early VC work, my initial idea was to make a film out of an audio interview i’d made in high school with my recently deceased grandfather. my grandfather was not an open and vulnerable dude and previous to this i had never had a deep conversation with him about anything. but since this was for a school project, he agreed. i remember him being surprisingly funny and candid, and this interview was the only time in my life i’d seen him cry. it changed our relationship. but i lost the tape!!! i lost the fucking tape. couldn’t find it anywhere. i had to change directions and decided that i would do the same oral history style interviews with my mom and my aunties. i sat them down and asked them about their entire lives. hours and hours of talk story that were enriching and revelatory. i recommend this exercise to everyone. not only for the wealth of generational knowledge but for the empathy and connection that it creates. makoto: or, honesty was created out of these hours of audio. in the edit, i focused in on the story of my father (whose name was also makoto) because i realized while conducting the interviews that our family hadn’t had any real conversations about his passing. he passed and we all just grieved quietly, on our own. this film provided a necessary opening. feeling like i needed to be included in the film, @yuisrain interviewed me as well. making makoto: or, honesty reaffirmed for me that the value of filmmaking is found in the process – the finished film in this case was a by product of a much richer, more important journey. i’ve found this to be the case every single time. huge shout out to @vcmediaorg @liumilton @annakemikaneko and my delightful fellowship class for their support and guidance 👁

now showing on @criterioncollection channel: OBAKE (2011). in 2009, i returned to my grandpa’s in Palolo. he had fallen ill with cancer and had decided that he’d prefer to pass on in his home, surrounded by family. being in that room with him, withered and unrecognizable, brought me back to sitting next to my father in the hospital four years earlier, in the same state: at the edge of consciousness, feeling an entire life closing in around us. in early 2010, i wrote obake as a way to process these experiences, as a way to communicate what it felt like to be in those rooms, as a way to hold onto those memories. i sent it to @arsheeshee and her response was: “THUMBS UP.” we were on our way. our crew was smaller than Layover: @thejguy82 , @jose4frio , @tysanga , @missspapaya, @iammaiinstagram, Caleb Lucero, Kate Dahan. the shoot was the hard, everything seemed to go wrong. luckily, i had a passionate team that prioritized this movie, rearranged their schedules, kept it moving forward, and in the end we got what we needed. if it wasn’t for their energy, their commitment, i’m not sure i could’ve pushed through the obstacles. i’m so thankful. i’d written a part for @jimmyboychan and he is wonderful, as always. such a beautiful soul. i’d seen @aly_ishikuni_sasaki perform music and knew she had a presence — i wanted to capture it on film. she and @michaeltanji both put their all into these roles, through very deep and vulnerable rehearsals we found the characters. @yucreates introduced me to Samuel Suzuki, an old vet who hung out at likelike drive-in, and I still remember i was immediately struck by his eyes, so much history in that face. he is no longer with us and i am glad that we have this film to remember him by. and of course kiko the dog 🖤 this short eventually got expanded into @iwasasimpleman years later, but at that time that wasn’t the intention. the intention was simply to get back on my feet and shoot something. to make something different, strange, unknown. something personal and indescribable. 👁

very grateful to be able to reflect on the series of shorts now up on @criterioncollection channel. first up: LAYOVER, ON THE SHORE (2009). this movie almost broke me. it was my film school thesis and the first film i’d shot at home since leaving the islands. but USC did not support the movie: there was pushback at every level and i even had faculty tell me that this was “not a movie.” i left the school feeling completely burned and i considered quitting filmmaking altogether. luckily, i had a team that supported the film throughout. @bekbot, my film school partner in crime, reminded me that this was USC, why did i care so much about what these people thought? the real question was, did i like it? i did. and the rest of the team did as well: written with @kevininouye, produced by @jabberkwoky and @yuisrain , shot by @arsheeshee , sound by @sungrokchoi and @beace__25degree_oblique , costume by @iammaiinstagram and a crew filled out by a bunch of film school weirdos: @thejguy82 @bgolden_davis @jose4frio david woo erik lu, and a cast that kills it: @jimmyboychan @arden_cho @heyrichardchiu @alohasoulsister @brandonreidhi @aralaylo … what a time. i’m fortunate that i’ve been able to work with these people over and over again. after usc, this film did not do well with festivals but now i see that going through all that rejection forged within me a determination to continue to follow my own path, to block out the noise. and although it was a long process, i feel like ever since, this has been the practice, to do the hard work of being able to listen, feel deep within, unconcerned with what’s out there, what’s cool, what others think. to let all that noise pass. not that i’m totally successful at this but i try, it’s a process. cos in the end, the resistance, the dismissal, the criticism was the fertilizer, and although i didn’t know it at the time, i grew a bunch between this film and the next one, Obake. and fast forward 10+ years, here it is, picked by criterion for their channel. life is unpredictable and strange. 👁