“Swing Me Again” Handles Thorny Issue of Leprosy in Japan1 min read
Reading Time: < 1 minuteToshi Shioya is an actor who has worked in American, Australian, British and Japanese films, a producer, a director and the founder of acting schools in Tokyo and Osaka.
Swing Me Again (Futatabi), his latest directing project, on the thorny issue of the treatment of leprosy patients in Japan, is being shown in a special screening at TIFF.
“In 1994 I got my first big lead, in the ABC mini-series Gaijin – and it got canceled four days into filming down in Hiroshima.I thought my career had really been blooming in the late “˜80s and early “˜90s, and I had big dreams of working in Hollywood – so it was a real shock to me,” he said.
“It took five years for me to realize it, it was discriminated against, the project itself; investors didn’t want to touch it. Actually almost four years ago we nearly got to launch it but it got canceled two weeks before shooting was due to start”
Read the full interview here >>
