The Sushi Master and The Filmmaker

Hello Mads and Natalie, director and writer respectively, you worked closely together to bring this film to life, and we want to hear what inspired you to create this film? Was there a specific event or story that sparked the idea?

Director Mads K. Baekkevold photographed by Brian Van Wyk at the Filmable Portrait Studio

Mads K. Baekkevold (MKB): The creative spark for the idea came when I was chosen to make a short promo for the Michelin Guide coming to Vancouver. In it, I interview about half a dozen local chefs and food personalities - including, you guessed it, Tojo. During our hour-long conversation I found him to be endlessly fascinating, a great raconteur, and someone who quite obviously had led a fascinating, long life. Whilst filming B-roll at his restaurant I spotted a massive Daruma high on a shelf. For those who don’t know, a Daruma is a round, red papier-mache doll fashioned in the image of a stern Buddhist monk. They come without eyes; you are to fill in an eye, make a wish or set a goal, and then put the Daruma where you can be reminded of said wish or goal. You later fill in the eye once you succeed. As it so happens, I always have a Daruma going myself. Having lived in Singapore for close to a decade and spending a lot of time in Japan, I had taken up the habit - I find it keeps me motivated. Me and Tojo spoke at length about Daruma and more, discovering a certain kinship in our outlook on life and our own goals and wishes.

And so an idea started percolating. What if I could make a film where Tojo’s fascinating life story was told in parallel to the Daruma ritual? Using the structure to tell of a man who came from humble means, set a goal for himself, and succeeded on the world stage beyond his wildest dreams? That format set the spine for our tale, I pitched it to Tojo, and soon we were cookin’.

The Chef And The Daruma

Watch the Trailer

Is there a specific aspect of the film that you are really excited about and would like to speak more to?

Writer Natalie Murao by Brian Van Wyk

MKB: I’m very excited about the Trojan Horse nature of the film, in terms of how it tells a grander narrative than what you might expect. It would have been tempting to make a razzle dazzle Netflix-style documentary with the vibe of “come see the craaazy story of the dude who invented the California Roll!!”, very likely with a trailer featuring a snippet of “they see me rollin’, they hatin’” - you get the idea. Instead we wanted to make something gentler, more thoughtful. Something with more of a historical context: I think the shift for a lot of people watching the film is when we touch on the history of Japanese Canadians, their internment and the other horrific mistreatments the Canadian government put them through. Tojo came here in the ‘70s, but of course he existed in the context of what came before him. I’m glad that we did not shy away from the thornier aspects of that subject, and I think it sets us up nicely for when the film’s final act gets more philosophical about life and how to live it.

Natalie Muaro (NM): What excited me to join the project is what still excites me now! And that's the opportunity to show the rich history and culture of the Japanese Canadian community. This film in particular expands to show the many different generations in the community, from new immigrants to fourth generation (like myself), and how they come together to learn from each other.

Do you have a favourite scene or moment in the film? If so, why is it important to you?

MKB: It’s an easy answer for me regarding my favourite scene in the film: it’s when Tojo goes to Harada’s eponymous restaurant in Kyoto. This is a relatively new, tiny, six or eight seater omakase restaurant that specializes in dashi, fish stock. You’d think there’s not that much you can do with a simple, clear soup, but you’d be amazed - there’s a reason Harada gets booked solid a year in advance. The reason this scene is my favourite is because of how Tojo reacted to Harada. It was a surprise for him that we were going there, we wanted a scene where Tojo tries something new, modern, Japanese. To see Tojo light up at the flavours - he immediately was the hungry, young chef he’s always been again, soaking up new influences and getting excited over food. I could so clearly see how he had broken the mold decades ago when he introduced Japanese food with a Western bent: he was so curious, so eager to try, so eager to experiment. I think the camera captured it all beautifully, and it wasn’t just about the food either. Harada and Tojo got along like the proverbial house on fire, expressing deep respect for each other as both chefs and as thinkers. I think one of the most valuable qualities a human can have is curiosity, and it felt amazing to capture that curiosity on film.

What question do you wish we'd asked? And how would you answer it?

MKB: I wish you’d asked me when I first fell in love with sushi. It’s one of my most formative memories. Growing up in rural Løten (population 5000) in Norway, there certainly weren’t a lot of sushi restaurants around. I first encountered sushi when my dad took me on a “boys’ trip” to London. Our first night there, on a total whim, we went to a sushi restaurant - I doubt my father had ever eaten sushi either. It was just a rinky dink hole in the wall, but I remember being blown away (likely because I made the classic “wasabi and soy sauce soup”, completely obliterating my taste buds). After that, on that trip, I wanted to have it again and again. I remember getting California Roll as takeaway back to our dingy little hotel room me and my dad shared. Lying on my tiny single bed, scarfing up Cali Rolls, I remember saying to my dad: “You know, life doesn’t get any better than this.” And I still think I was right.

Can you describe your process for writing the script? How did you approach the story structure and dialogue?

NM: It was a few months of weekly meetings at the library with Mads. We would come together and pretty much brainstorm and riff to our hearts content. What if we did recreations? What if Tojo visits his old workplace? What if everyone gets a daruma? In between writing sessions, we would do research and interviews with Tojo or community members. As the story started to take more shape overtime, I focused on the script and Mads worked on the visuals.

How would you describe your directing style? How do you work with actors to bring out their best performances? How do you collaborate with your team?

MKB: I’d like to think that my directing style when it comes to documentaries is all about being gentle. To create an environment everyone involved feels like they can be their true selves in. Gisli Snaer, the head of my film school alma mater in Singapore, instilled in me that what a director is is the weathervane for how things are going on set. If the director is tense and aggressive, the mood will be tense and aggressive. If the director is friendly and calm - you get the idea. And you should manipulate that. Even if you FEEL tense and aggressive - people around you should not be privy to that. You need to be cool as a cucumber. During my day job as a commercial director, this makes clients feel at ease: if this dude is so chill, surely the shoot is going well. (Meanwhile I am screaming internally.) And on a documentary shoot like the one for The Chef & The Daruma, you should cultivate that ease. Don’t push, don’t prod, don’t wring arms. It’s of course a very different matter if, say, you are making a political expose documentary. Then you need to be dogged and relentless. But for something gentle and philosophical like this, you should be the weathervane - bending into a pleasant breeze.

Which filmmakers or films have influenced your work the most?

Still frame from "The Chef And The Daruma"

MKB: The answer here is two-fold, as I can’t hide that I am a massive, massive horror guy. John Carpenter, Shinya Tsukamoto, Sam Raimi, Koji Shiraishi, David Lynch - these are undoubtedly my favourite directors, and whenever I make narrative short films they are always horror movies very much inspired by them. But I can’t exactly say that a ton of their auteurial style went into the making of The Chef & The Daruma.

Instead, I can speak to an exercise I did at the very earliest stage in the filmmaking process. I sent the core team (the creative producer/writer, the producer, the editor, and the cinematographer) six films that I wanted them to pull inspiration from. Four of them were documentaries, with their own individual strengths: Shirkers (a gorgeous look at the past), Dick Johnson is Dead (an incredibly impactful portrait of an older man), The Birth of Sake (a straightforward story with fantastic aesthetics) and, of course, Jiro Dreams of Sushi (you can’t make a doc about a Japanese chef without having watched that). The other two films were Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, and Tampopo. I didn’t want to be prescriptive in why I wanted people to watch those two - go off of vibes.

Finally, during my many talks with Tojo leading up to the filming I learned that he was a massive fan of Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru. Having never seen it, I watched it before filming and was blown away. I’ll let you see for yourself just how much of it ended up in The Chef & The Daruma.

What is the most important lesson you've learned from making this film?

Still frame from "The Chef and the Daruma"

NM: The commitment to craft. Tojo has been cooking for almost all of his life and he still holds so much curiosity and enthusiasm that's unexpected from a 70 year old. I hope to carry this type of attitude with me in my career.

What are you working on next? Are there any upcoming projects you're excited about?

MKB: I have quite a few things going at various stages of development. I’m dying to make more documentaries, I loved the process of making this one - I have two concepts in particular I’m really aching to get off the ground, and without revealing too much I will say that one of them is very much Japan-based again, and the other one is resolutely centered around the Pacific Northwest. Let me see if I can give a one-word tease for each. For the former: “sento”. For the latter: “spooky”.

And speaking of spooky - I mentioned that I was very much a horror guy! I have a plethora of scripted features and series bubbling and gurgling away, with several of them coming very close to being ready to burst to the surface as pitches and full screenplays. Maybe it’s an odd coupling to do horror movies and documentaries? However, put those two together and you get found footage…a much-maligned genre that I personally absolutely adore. I’d love to make one of those, ASAP.

And one last question… we’re dying to know - Natalie, what was the most memorable thing you ate?

NM: Dashi broth made from katsuobushi that was smoked with cherry blossom branches. When I sipped it, I felt like I finally understood what umami meant.

Thank you Mads and Natalie.

Let’s turn our attention to the producer, Luis Guerra.

Luis, a producer’s job is to be in the eye of the storm. A film can easily descend into chaos, so how do you facilitate collaboration between different departments to ensure the smooth running of a production?

Producer Luis Guerra by Brian Van Wyk

Luis Guerra (LG): The key to a collaborative film shoot is a constant and clear stream of communication between all of the department heads. By ensuring that all the departments are kept up to date with how the overall team is doing, you significantly reduce the chances of things slipping through the cracks and mistakes being made. This was especially vital for this production given how small of a team we were, so there was little room for mistakes. To achieve this, we created a production calendar with the team and set up regular intervals for us to be able to check in with each other regarding what we were working on at the moment. The calendar was implemented during the research and development portion of the film, and in hindsight this was one of the best things we could have done as this allowed us to better support each other as we neared the shoot, keeping all of the team informed from the conception of ideas, as well as spot areas where we’d need to either rethink our approach or the creative.

Can you share an example of a significant challenge you faced during production and how you resolved it?

LG: Shooting in Japan was by far the biggest challenge of the project. From having to get permission to shoot in public places and coordinating gear rental and pickup, to sorting accommodations and figuring out how to plan and navigate the shoot days without the ability to scout. There was a lot to figure out. Thankfully, we knew really early on into the project that we would be shooting in Japan, which gave us ample time to be able to plan accordingly. The way we approached this issue was by not underestimating the size of the task and beginning to plan it right away. We had months of prep and some members of our team had been in Japan and were familiar with the culture, as well as working with a local production fixer in Japan. All of these helped us feel as prepared as possible for the biggest shooting block, and I believe our efforts were worthwhile and noticeable in the final product.

Luis, let’s get philosophical for a moment. From your perspective, what would it take for the BC Independent Film Industry to thrive?

Executive Producer Matt Dix by Brian Van Wyk

LG: For the BC Independent Film Industry to thrive the community needs to be more well connected. The whole film community is greater than the sum of its parts, and we need to recognize that our strength comes from deeper collaboration. This is why organizations like VIFF and Filmable are incredibly important, as they create spaces for these connections to happen organically with like minded individuals.

Ahhhh shucks… now we’re blushing. You heard it here first, folks! A connected community is the next evolution of filmmaking in BC.

And last but certainly not least, the master cutter who weaves the threads of story, Anna Chiyeko, please take the mic.

Anna, how did you approach the storytelling aspect of editing, and what techniques did you use to enhance the narrative?

Anna Chiyeko (AC): When I received the assets for ‘The Chef & the Daruma’, I was sifting through eighteen days of footage that sprawled over two countries featuring over forty subjects all connected in one-way-or-another to Chef Tojo’s seventy-three year life story. To say the project and the weight of portraying Tojo honestly was intimidating is an understatement. There was so much gold in the dailies, but instead of trying to cram everything into the timeline and sacrificing clarity, my first story goal was to shape my assembly around a simple but effective linear telling of Tojo’s life in tandem with the episodic ritual of the Daruma. Tojo’s story is inherently heroic which perfectly mirrors the symbolic Daruma steps. With all the major beats present, and a solid story skeleton to build upon, I worked alongside Natalie Murao and Mads K. Baekkevold to achieve my second story goal of capturing Tojo’s candid essence and bringing his humanity and humour to the archaic hero’s journey skeleton. This was done by allowing the film to take side quests into focused and intimate moments with different subjects across varying locations that each highlighted different themes that arose throughout Tojo’s main linear arc. As a neurodiverse person who thinks non-linearly, applying this multi-branching way of storytelling to my editing was not only natural, but gave the film my personal touch. And the final story goal I had for ‘The Chef & the Daruma’ was to amplify the choir of Japanese and Japanese-Canadian voices who were featured beside Tojo. It was crucial for me to weave in the concept of collective storytelling by presenting these subjects as full and rounded, and not reduce them to exposition because they are the voices of my own community. As a Japanese-Canadian, I made sure to bring context and depth to Tojo’s personal story through the shared experiences and memories of the JC community. So to summarise, I utilised linear, non-linear and collective storytelling tools to cut the expansive and inspiring feature film, ‘The Chef & the Daruma’.

Wow. That was an incredibly thorough answer! You make it sound easy. What is the most challenging aspect of the editing process, and how do you handle it?

AC: The most challenging aspect of the editing process for me is adjusting my editor-director relationships from project to project. As someone who has been on both sides of this key creative partnership, I know first hand how vulnerable it is for a director to hand over their proverbial child to their editor, and then agree to co-parent the project through post. With every new partnership, I’ve learned through trial and error that I can’t just be an editor to my director; I have to become another member of their support system to help them through such a vulnerable and volatile part of the filmmaking process. Trust needs to be developed, work ethic and approach adjusted to, and open communication fostered between myself and any given director from scratch. I approach this by assessing where a director’s at emotionally, balancing my creative control with theirs professionally, and respecting my boundaries personally. Every director is different, which means every project requires a new approach to this intimate partnership. Although it is the most challenging aspect of my job, it is also the most rewarding. By putting in the work to create genuine and respectful connection with my directors, the editing itself becomes naturally more collaborative and streamlined. I’ve also gained amazing new friends and cultivated growing career connections because of this aspect of my work, and I wouldn’t trade it in to make the process any ‘easier’.

How closely did you work with Mads during the editing process of this project?

Still frame from "The Chef And The Daruma"

AC: Building off of my last response, l try to work very closely with all my directors, and Mads was no exception! I prefer to sit with my directors once a week to show them my work, but primarily to get to know them, and what they want/need from me and the edit. So Mads and I did just that. He was a thrill to work with, had a super clear and poignant vision for the film, and was very open and ready to listen to my creative opinion. What I really appreciated about Mads was how much he cared for Tojo’s story, and how much he trusted in as well as championed the voices of his creative team. Because of this, the whole editing process felt collaborative and we developed a safe space to create, try, fail and succeed. On Lock Approval day, we both admitted it was sad to say goodbye to our weekly editing sessions and our key creative partnership on ‘The Chef & the Daruma’. But it wasn’t a permanent farewell, as I consider Mads a new friend and a director I’d work with again in a heart-beat.

You sound like a verified dream team! What did you walk away from this project with?

AC: Back when I was offered the editing position for ‘The Chef & the Daruma’, I was immediately hooked by the film’s concept about a Japanese-Canadian and the fact that the producing team would be hiring JC filmmakers for the remaining key creative slots. Signing onto the project felt all the more personal because of my cultural and ethnic connection to its content and creators which added an extra level of responsibility to tell the story the best I could with and for my community. I really gave everything to Tojo’s story, and I was surprised by how much the film reciprocally gave back to me. As a yonsei (fourth generation) Japanese-Canadian, my relationship to my ethnicity and Japanese culture always felt at arms length, especially as a mixed-race person. By listening to so many community voices in the edit and working alongside my talented fellow JC key creatives, I was able to unconditionally embrace my Japanese heritage and find my unique way of reconnecting back to my family, culture and community. In particular, Natalie Murao and I connected deeply when we found out that not only did our families know one another from their time in internment, but our families lived in the same prefecture back in Japan. It is moments of connection like this, and the internal confidence in my heritage that ‘The Chef & the Daruma’ gifted me. And I will always be eternally grateful for that.

Beautiful! And that’s the magic of film. Uniting passionate, creative people and blossoming friendships in unexpected ways.

Team Photo: The Chef and The Daruma (2024)

Thank you all for answering our burning questions, and we look forward to seeing the product of your incredible collaboration.