Meet the Finalist: Eri Tsukimoto, "I will never give up!"

Tell us about yourself, and about I will never give up!.

I am Eri Tsukimoto. I am a director and writer of film, music video, and theater musical. I really would like to make heartful, creative, and impressive movie and artwork in order to convey people important and meaningful messages.Ordinarily, I am an actress and singer song writer as well. I have appeared on TV drama, CM, music program and talk show on TV, many films and theatre performances, musical, singing live and fashion show.I really love whole art. I think Art creates Love, and Love creates Art. Some of my songs are inside of the movies.I directed some musical, and three feature films and two music video. Two of them are now editing.I got 20 awards from world film festivals for two feature films and one music video now, and 41 nominations including Monaco, Europe, America and India as a director and supporting actress as well.I shoot films by myself with one video to create devised camera works and imaginable direction. Some of my songs and paintings are inside of my films.I worked for almost of all production of my directing works by my own.And, I appreciate my important few staffs and lots of actors.We are really happy and appreciate you all and your wonderful film festival.We wanted to convey the importance of life and heroine´s hard effort to overcome many difficulties of her deseases with her positive effort and hopes..

Share a memorable moment you experienced working on this project.

I worked with Aki Natsume who is the heroine of this music video and artist and singer of the song ゛I will never give up！゛.Aki Natsume who sings this song has many incurable diseases, such as cancer, autoimmune hemolytic anemia, systemic lupus erythematosus, and big tragic accident etc from her childhood.She is a very strong girl, so she tries to get over many suffering problems and diseases until now.But, she faces much more incurable diseases now.She is a singer, actress and a lecturer for people who suffers from difficult diseases in Japan. This spring, she became a politician as well for helping weak people.This music video tells her very hard situations, however she tries to overcome many difficulties with positiveness and strong will.While she has many deseases during hard shootings, she tried to show us happy smiles and kindness for us and rested her hard body without almost of us knowing.She will never give up!We wish her health and happy long future.I would love to support her by heart and by creating artworks for her.

Name 3 collaborators that you'd take with you to any other project.

Makiko Toda (For heroine of feature films)

Aki Natsume (for special appearance for other films)

Yukinori Yanada (For other films)

3 tips you’d like to share with aspiring artists in your field:

STEVEN SPILBERG

Yukio Ninagawa

Angelina Jolie

What do you hope to achieve in your career in the next 5 years?

As a director, My dream in next 5 years is making greater feature films in Japan, and making another wonderful feature films in abroad, such as New York and Paris etc with people from all over the world, as I have many scripts.Moreover, I hope to develop my acting and singing skills and career in Japan and abroad！I hope to make impressive artworks by my heart with important messages, such as peace, equality, happiness and true love.

I will never give up ! is nominated for Best Music Video of the Year at the New York Film Awards.