Fantasia 2017 Profile: Kyoko Miyake
“I believe I have a perspective that does not often end up on a big screen.”

Tokyo Idols is a fascinating and often unsettling exploration of Japan’s “Idol Culture”—a world of young female pop singers, girl bands, and their overwhelming number of middle-aged male fans devoted to following them, both online and in real life. Following bonafide “idol” Rio, her fans (who call themselves her “brothers”), and her journey to fame, Tokyo Idols examines this cultural phenomenon and uncovers the forces that are fueling it: the obsession with young female sexuality, the rise of live-streaming and online popularity, and the growing disconnect between men and women in hyper-modern societies.

Director Kyoko Miyake was born in Japan and studied history at Tokyo University. She later moved to UK to research the history of witchcraft at
Oxford. She eventually turned her focus to film, quickly accumulating awards for her short documentaries including a Peabody Award for Brakeless and the Berlin Today Award for Hackney Lullabies. Her first feature documentary, My Atomic Aunt, was supported by the Sundance Institute Documentary Fund, BBC, WDR, and NHK, and it was broadcast on PBS.
Tokyo Idols had its World Premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and has since screened at festivals worldwide, including Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Copenhagen International Documentary Festival, Docville International Documentary Film Festival, San Francisco Documentary Festival, and Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film.
If you’re in Montréal, you can see the Quebec Premiere of Tokyo Idols at this year’s Fantasia International Film Festival, screening at 7:30 PM on July 26th. GET YOUR TICKETS HERE.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got involved with filmmaking.
Kyoko Miyake: I was a late starter. I picked up a camera and started making short documentary films about ten years ago. I kept applying for film schools, internships, and assistant jobs but got absolutely none of them. So I kept making short films and it eventually led to my first feature documentary film, My Atomic Aunt, released in 2013.
Tell us a bit about TOKYO IDOLS. What inspired you to tell this story?
KM: The film follows teenage pop singers and their middle-aged fans. It is about a disconnection between men and women in a hyper modern society.
With so many girls involved in the Idol scene, how did you decide to put the main focus on Rio?
KM: I was looking for someone with agencies so the film would not show a stereotype of cute Japanese girls. I also wanted to make sure that we didn’t end up objectifying the idol girls in our film when we wanted to look at the objectification of women in Japanese society.

Was it a challenge to balance your outside (and personal) perspective with that of those within the Idol subculture?
KM: It was one of the hardest parts of making this film. I started off with a fairly critical perspective, having spent the last 15 years in the UK but after a few concerts, a sense of normalcy kicked in, even for our non-Japanese crew. What helped us in the end was the physical distance from Japan. Every time I went back to London (and my team back to Montreal), it gave us a chance to put things into perspective again.
What do you hope audiences take away from TOKYO IDOLS?
KM: I hope the audience who might find the whole thing really strange, alien, and foreign at the beginning of the film, start to find parallels in their every day life and begin to question some aspects of it. I believe that many elements we found in the idol culture — the objectification, the internalization, the justification etc — are happening not only in Japan but everywhere. It is just taken to extreme in Japan.
Can you tell us about some/all of the other amazing women who worked on this film?
KM: Our editor, Anna Price, brought energy, rhythm, and a sharp critical eye to the film. More than half of our executive producers are women and talking to them during the edit was an integral part of making this film.

Tell us about why you are a feminist and why it’s important to your filmmaking.
KM: I’m a feminist because I believe in equality. The world is full of male gaze and most stories are told from a male perspective. I believe I have a perspective that does not often end up on a big screen.
Who are your favourite women working in the film industry?
KM: Ava Duvernay and Amy Schumer.
What’s the best advice about filmmaking you’ve ever received?
KM: The most important thing is to keep making films.
What are you working on now/next?
KM: My first narrative feature called Femme Fatale.

And now for some fun ones! If you had your own talk show, who would your first three guests be?
KM: George Takei, Michelle Obama, and Jon Stewart.
If you had one extra hour of free time a day, how would you use it?
KM: Watching more films.
Finally, recommend one #MUFFApproved film for our blog readers:
KM: Toni Erdmann (dir. Maren Ade)

Follow Kyoko on Twitter and check out her personal website.
Check out Tokyo Idol’s official page on the EyeSteelFilm website for up-to-date info on the film.

Lisa Gallagher is the Producer of The MUFF Society in Toronto. She is a lover of cats, carbs, and laying down.
Follow her on Instagram and Letterboxd.





