Pink Film Veteran Zeze Takahisa Champions Original Stories at Tokyo Masterclass

At a Tokyo International Film Festival masterclass, director Zeze Takahisa reflected on his early pink and independent films and argued for the value of original stories. His career shows how filmmakers could use the relative freedom of pink cinema to explore unconventional subjects before moving between independent and mainstream work.

Zeze began as an assistant director in 1986 and made his directorial debut in 1989, later becoming known as one of the “Four Heavenly Kings of Pink”. He said directors then had to include a bed scene roughly every ten minutes, but could still pursue politically sensitive ideas; his 2010 film *Heaven’s Story*, a 278-minute drama, won the Berlin festival’s FIPRESCI Prize. He also described a current reliance on adaptations as a challenge for filmmakers.