Risa Okamoto

Published March 2011

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Risa Okamoto has every reason to be feeling inspired at the moment. Currently squirreled away in the world of post-production, Risa and her team are putting the finishing touches to a one hour long documentary on Anuradha Koirala, founder of Maiti Nepal – an organization that rescues and rehabilitates victims of human trafficking.
So profound is the work done by Ms. Koirala, she was recently named CNN's 2010 Hero Of The Year for saving over 12,000 under-aged girls from sex slavery.



A Stanford University graduate and fluent in English and Japanese, Risa's work has appeared on Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, The Travel Channel, Discovery Science, Channel News Asia, NHK World News, Sony Pictures, and Crime and Investigation Channel, covering a wide range of topics including history, science, food, travel, design and current affairs.



“Why did I get into documentaries? Well I guess its because I wanted to do something with my life that was consequential,” states Risa. “Television and the media is a good way to reach a lot of people, if you are trying to make a positive impact on the world. I guess that’s the bottom line.



I think everyone has a skill set – we’re each given tools with which we can make a positive impact on the world and the people around us, if we choose to. I personally really love true stories. So I make documentaries. I don't pretend to be any good at it; but heart goes a long way.



I like to aim to do projects that will make a positive impact, however small. that’s not to say that every program I make is interesting, or even particularly meaningful – but even if one person decides to change the way they do things, or to follow a dream, or to visit a country, or to recycle as a result of seeing a program I made, then that’s what I work for.”



Going through Risa's list of accomplishments one can't help but feel intrigued at the sorts of projects she's worked on. “I have a few favorites though,” she enthused. “Japanese Cowboy, for National Geographic Channel, was really fun. I found this guy, a Japanese construction worker who had a dream of becoming a professional rodeo bull rider. I followed him on his journey for a while, and that was lovely. That doco took me to all sorts of random tiny towns in Texas, and everything you hear about Texans is true. They are massive. They wear cowboy hats. And they’re really, really hospitable. Cowboys are so charming.


But it’s not always fun and games. I remember when I was doing a series in china some years ago; we were traveling with about 25 pieces of luggage and equipment - about 3000 USD worth of excess baggage – and a coordinator had booked us rooms on the fifth floor of a hotel with no elevators. So we, the 4 person crew, carried all those pieces of equipment up and down those stairs every day, and what was worse, we were shooting at the Hanging Monastery, which is built halfway up a cliff, a 100 meters in the air, and you have to climb hundreds of stairs to get to it. As you can tell, I’m a little bitter about this.



That was the same shoot when we stayed in a hotel with no toilet paper, but that’s another story.
So as with every job, there’s the good with the bad. Yes, I got to walk amongst 2000 year old terracotta warriors. And I got to sit on a 2000-pound rodeo bull. And I’m often moved and inspired beyond what I could possibly imagine.
But I’m also in the edit suite right now, at 4:30 pm on a Sunday afternoon, been here since this morning, went back at midnight last night, and it looks like I’ll be here even later tonight. I’m looking at my friends with ‘real’ jobs who earn five times as much as I do, and they get to sit by the pool on weekends while I'm stuck in a windowless room looking at footage over and over again.



Sometimes acquaintances come up to me and they’re like : “Oh you make documentaries, how cool! I want to do that!” and my response to them is that they have no idea how painful it is to make a documentary, how stressful it is, how our hearts get wrung dry with every project, and our emotions get so maxed out, how many times I’ve cried on shoot for one reason or another, and how sometimes I want to quit so bad but I can’t, maybe I’m a sucker for punishment. It sounds really melodramatic, but you stay because the end result is fantastic.



Who knows, maybe one day I’ll buckle down and get a real job where I don’t find my life in danger, where I don't constantly live out of a suitcase. But until Mr. RightJob comes along, my current one is giving me one hell of a ride.



Speaking of emotional moments, the first time I cried during an interview was when I was speaking to a wagyu beef rancher in Japan. It was for Culinary Asia Japan, for Discovery – this was the one that won Best Infotainment Program at the Asian Television Awards recently, for whatever that’s worth, and got runner up in cross platform content.The wagyu farmer loves his cows, I mean LOVES his cows. He built their barn from scratch, by himself, by hand from the ground up. He hangs out with them one by one every day to make sure they’re happy, and he also plays Elton John cds all day in the barn because he says easy listening music relaxes them. I would personally go mad if I had to listen to Elton all day but I guess the cows like it.
He has a really strong bond with each of them cos they’re born on his farm. And of course the inevitable question is, how do you deal with it when they go off to get slaughtered? He said that before he sends his cows off, he talks to them and thanks them for giving up their lives so he could maintain his livelihood. And he says they understand – and they cry, as in they shed tears.




I guess the main thing is that I think documentaries are tremendously powerful. They do have the power to change the world for the better. But they also have the power to touch lives in small ways – to make you appreciate a simple meal, for instance. And I believe that counts as much as large scale policy changes.



At the best of times, documentaries remind us that we live in a beautiful, extraordinary world that will always surprise us. And hopefully they’ll also inspire us to appreciate the world we live in, make it better, and make it last a little longer.”


www.risaokamoto.com 

Tribute To A Friend

Published January 2010

I will always remember the first time I met Asim Butt. It was in Singapore, circa 1989. We were a bunch of new students, gearing up for the scary world of high school during the early days of orientation.

There we were, a fine lot of us. Coltish, unsure, nervous. Looking around and studying each other. Nervous smiles and butterflies in stomachs. Trying to muster the best nonchalant expressions an 11 year old could.

Then Asim made his appearance. Tall for his age. Slender would be a great way to describe him, with a megaton watt smile. He spoke to everyone he came across. He was calm and grinned from ear to ear as he introduced himself, also a fellow newbie, to the rest of us.

When he got to me I tried to break the ice further by asking him if he got teased a lot for his surname. “It makes me the butt of a lot of jokes but I don’t mind,” he offered politely as he waited for me to react to the pun.

Several well-intended chuckles and a smattering of exchanges later we were ushered towards our respective tutor groups and headed off in different directions. That was the start of our five year friendship.

We did have several art and drama classes together and I suspect we fancied ourselves as artistic. But then again we were encouraged to be precocious. I veered towards music and languages while Asim shifted focus to the stage. During my time in high school, I cannot say that Asim and I were best friends. We weren’t that. But we were close, in the way that connoisseurs of, say, a fine wine, would be. Selectively in the know. Leaning in to discuss one form or art or another, from time to time.

Now, embarrassingly, I can’t remember the last time I saw Asim, or if I even said goodbye to him before I left high school. But I do know that we got back in touch over Facebook in 2007. This was someone I met almost 21 years ago and he was now just a click away.

I discovered that my old friend had moved back home to Pakistan in 2002 after abandoning his PhD in History at the University of California, and had become something of a poignant enfant terrible whose work was taking the country’s art scene by storm. Yes Asim had indeed stuck to his artistic roots, but instead of fine-tuning his dramatic skills he chose to focus on becoming an artist proper.

And what an artist. Sure there is a bit of personal bias here, but if you were to simply Google Asim Butt you’d come across wonderful reviews from renowned stalwarts such as BBC, ABC, Al-Jazeera, The Chicago Tribune and The Boston Globe, to name but a few. Asim was also known by many in Pakistan for his Graffiti art; particularly for his “Eject” button spray-painted on the walls of many city venues, symbolizing the end of General Musharraf’s government. Asim was also responsible for the “Stop” signs sprayed on torched cars and damaged buildings after Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. He was making an impact. People were paying attention.

I particularly enjoyed a review by The Lahore Times in April 2009 of one of Asim’s shows: “Rejecting what is on the horizon of Pakistani art, Butt has stuck to his innate traumas and nightmares, using the medium of oil on canvas.

Butt is a rebellious artist who paints, sculpts, and has an interest in graffiti and printmaking. Through his 16 large size canvases, he continues to defy conformist meanings of family, career, security.

The medium of oil on canvas, digital prints, and charcoal and chalk on board, acquire political tones, conversing with the inner apparitions of the artist.”

Perhaps his ‘innate traumas and nightmares’, the very fuel for his work, influenced his decision to throw in the towel. My friend, Asim Butt, took his own life on Friday, January 15^th 2010, while at his home in Karachi. He was 31 years old.

Another alumni member, film director Risa Okamoto, summed him up succinctly and perfectly: “Asim was so totally memorable. I didn't see him at all after he left school but I still remember what his voice sounded like and what his mannerisms were. It's crazy, some people just leave a huge imprint wherever they go.”

It was Risa who informed me of Asim’s death. I spent my entire Sunday reading tribute after tribute to my fallen friend. I had no idea he had moved or affected so many, so greatly. It was touching yet agonizing to read messages from people I will probably never meet, who felt exactly as I did at that very moment. Numbingly surreal. And painfully humbling.

I hope that my words here will serve as an appropriate tribute to someone who is no longer with us. It upsets me to think of what he could have accomplished in the future. It was that bright. And I also wonder if he was in pain when he died. Without judgement, I struggle to understand what could have made him feel that low, to make him think that he had no other options left.

But then I realize that he is at peace now, something which he wasn’t able to find or feel when he was alive. While that gives me some level of comfort, I just want to say very simply, very plainly and very honestly that I miss my friend. I miss him a lot.

In loving memory Asim Butt 1978 - 2010

(Photograph by Ziad Zafar)

Sources: www.pakistaniat.com/ www.stuckism.com