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Title: OUR SCOTLAND: A Japanese Perspective

Reference number: 12496

Date: 2013

Director: d. Yushin Toda

Production company: Japan Desk Scotland

Sound: sound

Original format: unknown

Colour: col

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 34.30 mins

Description: Documentary looking at the inclusive nature of Scottish society, as seen through the eyes of two Glasgow-based Japanese journalists.

Credits: p. Fumi Nakabachi and Yushin Toda, Japan Desk Scotland
comm. w. Yushin Toda
ph. Fumi Nakabachi
ed. Hajime Kobayashi, (Colin Brierley)

Shotlist: Filmmaker's synopsis:

This is a portrait of Scottish society from the eyes of two Glasgow-based Japanese journalists. At a Scottish ceilidh held at Wellington Church, Glasgow, an Italian visitor sang an Italian song and Chinese students sang Auld Lang Syne in Chinese together with Scottish people. This is seen as showing an ‘inclusive’ aspect of Scottish society, where there is a role for strangers to play.

Who are strangers? What is inclusion? What does it mean to share other cultures?

These issues are explored through interviews with the filmmakers’ acquaintances. Along the way, a Japanese Matsuri festival in Glasgow is introduced, which aims to be an ‘inclusive’ event for all, regardless of their backgrounds, where Scottish volunteers share their knowledge and skill of Japanese cultural traditions, such as origami and Taiko Japanese drumming, with visitors. The festival has been organised by Japanese Matsuri for Glasgow, a recognised Scottish charity the filmmakers set up, twice a year since 2001.

Interviewees (in order of first appearance):
David Sinclair, Ruth Beattie, Jim Brown, Dana Brown, Eilidh, Catherine Shaw-Dunn, Christine Scott, Andrew Robson, Irene Spinney, Peter Spinney, Iain Caldwell, Jamie Campbell, David, Amanda, Norman, Carolyn, Thomas, Michael, Aidan, Shin'i, Catriona, Ewen Donaldson, Francis Donaghy, Naseem Anwar, Stuart MacQuarrie, John Ferry and Walter Halley.