Before Anyone Else

JAPAN, AMERICA | 2023 | Drama | Short | 19min

Director: Tetsuya Mariko

Screenwriter: Gregory Collins, Tetsuya Mariko

Executive Producer: Eisei Shu, Yuki Sakamoto Solomon

Producer: Eisei Shu, Yuki Sakamoto Solomon, Gregory Collins

Cinematographer: Yasuyuki Sasaki

Editor: Ryoma Hirata

Art Director: Maggie O’Brien

Sound: Hiroaki Kanachi

Starring: Akiyo Komatsu, Chloe Skoczen, Kenzo Yeung

Synopsis

Jimmy and Lex find a boy in a car but, instead of saving him, they steal a gun from the glove box. Jimmy then mistakenly fires it before returning to save the boy. The film builds to a climax as Lex becomes increasingly abusive toward the boy and as Jimmy learns that his gunshot may have accidentally killed someone.

Festival&Award

2023 Chicago International Film Festival – International Competition

Tetsuya Mariko

Born in Tokyo in 1981, Mariko’s first feature film, Yellow Kid (2009), is a graduate film of the Graduate School of Film and New Media at Tokyo University of the Arts, which won the Dragons & Tigers Award in Vancouver, invited by Hongkong, Rotterdam and San Sebastian. His second feature, Destruction Babies (2016) received numerous awards internationally, including the Golden Leopard for Best Emerging Director at the Locarno Film Festival and the Silver Balloon at the Nantes Three Continents Festival, as well as six awards at the Yokohama Film Festival in Japan. His latest feature, Miyamoto (2019) received the Asia Film Critics Association NETPAC AWARD Best Screening Play award, and the awards in Japan for the Best Director at the Nikkan Sports Film Awards, the Blue Ribbon Awards, and the Takasaki Film Festival. He has been in Boston as a Visiting Scholar at the Reischauer Institute at Harvard University for one year from March 2019.