From my own story to everyone's story, 'My Sunshine' director Hiroshi Okuyama

Japanese feature film 'My Sunshine' will be screened at the Sydney Film Festival 2024. Credit: Sydney Film Festival

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"After finishing my first feature, I felt so accomplished and kinda burned out. I had a story for my next film but couldn't go ahead as I was worried that it wouldn't be as good as the first one." A Japanese film director Hiroshi Okuyama's second feature 'My Sunshine' will be screened this week at the Sydney Film Festival 2024. His first film 'Jesus' was also screened at the festival in 2019.

Mr Okuyama's first feature film 'Jesus' received high praise. Mr Okuyama won the new director award at the 66th San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain in 2018. He was 22 years old when he received the award. That made him the youngest recipient of the award in the festival's history.

Mr Okuyama is flying to Sydney this week to attend the screenings of his seconf film 'My Sunshine' at the SFF.

'My Sunshine' was selected for the Un certain regard section at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

In the audio, Mr Okuyama talks about the making process of the second film, Ai and filmmaking, and how he overcame the shadow of his first film.