Yellow Chrysanthemum Seeks Gap-Financing in Tokyo — SkimNews
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Yellow Chrysanthemum follows Erika, 16, in São Paulo during Brazil’s July 2014 World Cup; after cousin Yam vanished at a traditional festival when she was 7, the family settles into guilty silence and she turns away from her Japanese-Brazilian roots.
- André Hayato Saito developed his first feature around family silence, saying it can express love and respect while concealing pain; he wants audiences to recognize their own unspoken family histories without easy answers or conventional closure.
- Yellow Chrysanthemum is in pre-production after several years as a Brazil-Japan-Germany-France co-production; it won the TorinoFilmLab Production Award and was selected for Focus Copro at Cannes.
- Mayra Faour Auad says the team wants to close the film’s financing gap and meet producers, distributors and sales agents who can bring it to audiences across Asia, with Japan carrying special meaning because of its Japanese-Brazilian roots.
- MyMama Entertainment is developing the film with One Two Films, Loaded Films and Blue Monday, while the production plans to shoot a Toro Nagashi sequence in Brazil in November this year.
- Amarela, Saito’s earlier short featuring a Japanese-Brazilian teenager named Erika, competed for the short-film Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2024, was shortlisted for the live-action short Oscar at the 98th Academy Awards and won best live-action short at Brazil’s Grande Otelo Awards.
Why it matters: For producer Mayra Faour Auad and MyMama Entertainment, the Tokyo market is the stated route to close a specific financing gap and connect with Asian distributors and sales agents. The November Toro Nagashi shoot and four-country production give potential partners concrete project terms, while the earlier short’s Cannes and Oscar recognition gives them a track record.
Ask SkimNews
