ZERO AS YOU ARE

An Illuminating Portrait of a Transgender Youth

Venue: Uplink Shibuya
EXPANDED! Every Tuesday and Saturday until August 20, 2020
Official website: konomi.work
Theater website: shibuya.uplink.co.jp/movie/2020/56106
Theater website: shibuya.uplink.co.jp/
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zfo3krJ3HY&feature=emb_logo
Tariff:  Adults: ¥1,900, senior: ¥1,200, youth: ¥1,100, under 19: ¥1,000, under 16: ¥800; Members: ¥1,100 or ¥1,000
Talk event: Bilingual talks: August 1, 10:15am director and Ian Thomas Ash; August 4, 10:15am director and protagonist's mother

Title: ぼくが性別「ゼロ」に戻るとき　空と木の実の9年間 (Boku ga Seibetsu "Zero" ni Modoru Toki Sora to Konomi no Kyu nenkan)
Director: Miyuki Tokoi (常井美幸)
Duration: 84 min

We’ve heard a lot recently about the human rights challenges of Japanese who identify as LGBTQ and other sexual/gender minorities, but rarely do we have the opportunity to follow an individual on the long journey through self-realization. 

Zero as You Are gives us that opportunity, demonstrating deep compassion and rare insight into the mental — and physical — tolls faced by one such young man. Following its enthusiastic reception at over 50 independent screenings nationwide, the documentary is finally being released at Uplink, and there will be (at least) two English-subbed screenings, both with English Q&A sessions (rejoice!): On Aug. 1 with the director and acclaimed documentarian Ian Thomas Ash, and on Aug. 4 with the director and the protagonist's mother.

UPDATE: The run has been extended, and there are E-subbed screenings every Tuesday and Saturday.

The director of Zero as You Are, Galaxy Award nominee and former NHK producer Miyuki Tokoi, first became interested in the issue of gender identity and expression in 2010, when it was a flashpoint in Japanese schools. At the time, students were still being forced to use the locker rooms and restrooms, and to wear the uniforms that correlated with the genders they had been labeled with at birth.

Tokoi met Sky Kobayashi when he was 15 and living in a state of constant anxiety. Born as a girl, he was one of the first students in Japan to persuade a junior high school to accept a female student as male (after receiving a “gender identity disorder” diagnosis). Tokoi spent the next 9 years capturing Sky’s daily struggles and humiliations, from high school through the two surgical procedures at ages 18 and 20 that allowed him to transition more closely to becoming a man. “Why do I want to go through with these surgeries?” he asks in the film. “Because everybody starts from zero to do what they want for their future, but I’m still at the minus level. In order to go to plus, I have to return to zero first.”

But Zero as You Are doesn’t end with Sky fulfilling his long-cherished dream. After surgery, he discovers that he does not identify as a man either, and Tokoi leaves him, after a “3,000-day journey,” in the midst of a search beyond gender binarism.

Zero as You Are is an illuminating — and necessary — portrait not only of Sky Kobayashi, but of  others  who have been making their own journeys toward self-realization, and of contemporary Japanese society, where the voices of the marginalized have yet to gain the necessary power to effect sweeping change.

Uplink Shibuya

Title: ぼくが性別「ゼロ」に戻るとき　空と木の実の9年間
(Boku ga Seibetsu "Zero" ni Modoru Toki Sora to Konomi no Kyu nenkan)
Director: Miyuki Tokoi (常井美幸)
Duration: 84 min
Venue: Uplink Shibuya
English subtitled screenings: EXPANDED! Every Tuesday and Saturday until August 20, 2020
Official website: konomi.work
Theater website: shibuya.uplink.co.jp/movie/2020/56106
Theater website: shibuya.uplink.co.jp/