When he turned 40, Japanese film director Ryosuke Hashiguchi realised there was something missing in his life. 'I'm a 40-year-old gay man and now is the time for me to think about how the rest of my life should be,' he says. 'It is difficult to have a lifelong relationship between men. But I'm still really looking forward to having one. I'm older now and I want to find someone I can exchange ideas with. I'm also thinking about a family.'
The director's desires laid out the blueprint for his latest film Hush!. Like Hashiguchi's two previous films, A Touch Of Fever and Like Grains Of Sand, Hush! revolves around a homosexual relationship. Noaya (Takahashi Kazuya) is in an unsatisfying relationship with Katsuhiro (Tanabe Seiichi), who tends to hide his sexuality and is generally indecisive. A woman named Asako (Kataoka Reiko) offers to have Katsuhiro's child - an option which throws the trio into the turmoil of weighing up whether they could become a family.
Hashiguchi says Noaya is a reflection of his own character. 'Just like me, Noaya comes from an unfortunate family background, where his parents argued with each other a lot and finally divorced. He feels there is something missing in his life. Noaya's emotional but open-minded mother is based on my mother's personality,' he says.
'Family' is something that bothers Hashiguchi and that he explores in the film. 'The concept of family has been evolving in Japan,' he says. 'Recently people have been asking what exactly a family is but in my opinion once a baby has recognised who its parents are, a family is established. It doesn't matter even if they are related by blood or not,' he says.
Hashiguchi was born in 1962 in Nagasaki and first began delving into the cinematic world by shooting super-8 films in high school. He made his directorial debut in 1989 with The Secret Of Last Night, which won him the Grand Prize at the Pia Film Festival in Tokyo. He was studying at Osaka Arts University at the time and after winning the award he dropped out of university and became a full-time director.
He began working on TV programmes and videos while at the same time writing his second film, A Touch Of Fever, which was released in 1993. The film took Hashiguchi on to the international stage with invitations to 25 film festivals, including Berlin, where he was featured in the Young Forum.