INTRO
In episode 89, Stephen chats with his longtime friend and collaborator Joseph Overbey about their upcoming film, The Spirit of Japan.
CREDITS
Theme Song: Begin Anywhere by Tomoko Miyata (http://tomokomiyata.net/)
Mixing and Editing: Rich Pav (https://uncannyjapan.com/)
HOSTS
CHRISTOPHER PELLEGRINI Vermont born and bred, long-time Tokyo resident and author of The Shochu Handbook, Christopher learned about delicious fermentations as a beer brewer at Otter Creek (Middlebury, VT). He now spends most of his waking hours convincing strangers that shochu and awamori are unlike anything they’ve ever tried before.
STEPHEN LYMAN discovered Japan’s indigenous spirits at an izakaya in New York City. He was so enthralled that he now lives in Japan and works in a tiny craft shochu distillery every autumn. His first book, The Complete Guide to Japanese Drinks, was nominated for a 2020 James Beard Award.
Stephen Lyman and Christopher Pellegrini have a deep love for cinema whether it be fiction or documentary. To have a shochu documentary about to appear on screens across the world is beyond a thrill.
If you have any comments or questions about this episode, please reach out to Stephen or Christopher via Instagram. We would love to hear from you.
SHOW NOTES
The Beginning.
Way back in 2012, Joseph Overbey was making JW Overbey Whiskey at his microdistillery in Brooklyn when he and his girlfriend snuck into a booze show at Javitz Center in Manhattan. The reason? He wanted to hear Stephen’s shochu seminar at the Japan Pavillion at the show. Afterward he introduced himself to Stephen and their friendship began.
Stephen visited Joseph’s distillery and Joseph joined Stephen’s frequent izakaya parties. One night in 2015 over some shochu, Joseph expressed that he was thinking about getting into filmmaking after decades working in photography. Stephen told Joseph about his upcoming trip to work at Yamatozakura. They decided Joseph should come to Japan and film at the distillery while Stephen was working.
Perhaps they thought a documentary about a crazy American who spends his vacation doing manual labor would be interesting to someone somewhere or may be they just thought it would be fun to make something together. Either way, the result is much more than either of them could have imagined.
The Spirit of Japan
A lot of art projects start with a working title with a better name coming along later. The Spirit of Japan was the name of our documentary project from the very beginning. Joseph came to Yamatozakura in rural Kagoshima in October 2016 and October 2017.
In 2016 he was a fly on the wall, just capturing imagery of the shochu making process, the people making shochu, and the surrounding area on the southwestern coast of Kyushu.
A year later after seeing the footage, he would return with a much clearer idea of what he wanted to shoot and what questions he wanted to ask. The Spirit of Japan was born out of that exploration. Interviews with Tekkan Wakamatsu, the head distiller at Yamatozakura, and his father (the owner-president) would form the backbone of a story that is much more compelling than crazy-foreigner-works-in-japan-for-fun. Stephen barely appears in the finished film and that’s 100% okay with him.
A Very Long Project
This was Joseph’s first documentary film. And it was shot 100% in Japanese. And he doesn’t speak Japanese. And film editors willing to work for pennies on the dollar who are fluent in both English and Japanese are not that common. it took until 2019 for Joseph to meet Tom Bayles, a film editor and professional Japanese-English translator.
They spent their COVID work-from-home downtime editing the documentary over zoom. A rough cut came together pretty quickly, but its since been years of tweaking and workshopping and evolving to reach to the point where the film is ready for the light of day.
Joseph’s hard work has paid off. The film has already been acquired by a PBS affiliate for US broadcast and will premiere as the closing night film at JAPAN CUTS 2025 at the Japan Society in NYC on July 20th.
If you’re interested in attending, please buy tickets here. Joseph, Stephen, and Tekkan will all be there for a Q&A after the show and Yamatozakura shochu will be served at the closing night party after the screening!
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