A big congratulations to the short film LILLIAN, on which Andrey was Director of Cinematography and Hazuki was Assistant Camera, for entering Cleveland International Film Festival. A big shout out to producer/director Amanda Pennington for bringing together such a beautiful piece.

LILLIAN is a film inspired by 19th Century Pulitzer Prize winning poet, activist, feminist Edna St. Vincent Millay's Poem "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed". It is a memory piece, exploring the relationship between two women, taking place between 1940 and 1918. The film opens in 1940 with Lillian Manning (Tony Nominee Kathleen Chalfant) engaged in bittersweet reflection of a love lost—a reverie that began in 1918 as an innocent encounter between a younger Lillian (Amanda Pennington) and Frances Duthu (Toni Robison-May), and what unfolded into a sweet same sex romance bound by unsuppressed emotion.

We hope this film does well not only in CIFF but also in other festivals!

This has become an annual Noka event now, but a bunch of filmmakers and film enthusiasts gathered to watch the Academy awards unfold. Yes of course, there was some cute betting involved. Why would you not spice up the night with a little bit of risk?

This year, about 30 guests got together and all cast in their votes for Oscars 2013. Some voted for ARGO, some voted for Amour…votes were very diverse this year, which made the competition all the more interesting. When watched with good company, your missed predictions seem more forgivable. You turn around to the next person and ask, "You actually LIKED that movie?" Hear why, and you might be convinced. At the end of the day, it's all about discussing and enjoying film. 

We want to thank everyone who trekked out to Brooklyn to join us for this fun night. We hope you had as much fun as we had. To all our guests and and also to those who couldn't make it this year—watch out for Oscars 2014!

We would like to thank everyone who supported us, worked with us, and have been with us this last year. Noka is a small production company with big aspirations, and we cannot complete a single project without the help from the people around us. We are thankful to have met each and every one of you, and we hope the relationship is a long lasting one. Many wishes for a grand and prosperous 2013!

This fall, Andrey and Hazuki co-directed a very compelling film called LAST STATEMENT. It combines the chilling tales of actual inmates awaiting their executions on Death Row. Orla Wolf, German playwright, manufactured a spellbinding narrative that strings these first person accounts into one continuous story. 

Led by project director Juliane Block, a film director who resides in Berlin, this production was made possible by a series of co-directors from Germany, Canada, and USA. We represented New York. Other directors were: Juliane Block, Todd Felderstein, Rebecca Hu, Will McCord, Marty Shea, Bruno Simoes, Jacob Steiger, John Versical, and Ernest Worthing. We all had complete artistic control over our parts and collectively discussed how it should all come together–a truly collaborative effort. Currently in the last stages of post production, LAST STATEMENT will soon be competing in film festivals worldwide. To follow, please visit its facebook page.

The controversy of the death penalty is a complicated one. This film is not out to make a political statement, but prefers to provoke thought to the matter. These were real people, real lives. Who are we to judge?

"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."

-J.R.R. Tolkien

A few years back, we were hired to film the New York Burlesque Festival. It was a gig that started out of curiosity. Four nights of women (and men!) removing their clothes on stage, elegantly, artistically, comically…a weekend full of entertainment. The New York Burlesque Festival is an annual four day event that takes place in New York City each fall. The festival premiered in 2003 and was founded by Jen Gapay of Thirsty Girl Productions along with Angie Pontani, Tara Pontani and Helen Pontani of The World Famous Pontani Sisters. The festival features over 100 burlesque and variety performers from around the world, making it one of the largest international burlesque events in the world

For us, it's actually four nights of pretty hard labor. But despite the backaches, sore muscles, and strained optical nerves, we've been filming them every year ever since. Why? Because the Burlesque community consists of the nicest people we've ever met. Indeed it may not be the most refined crowd, but burlesque, in all its vulgar can also be seen as an act of bravery, empowerment, and transformation. Here, the key term is "acceptance". People of all ages, genders, sizes, and looks are loved.

This year marks the 10th annual festival, and it was another four nights of glitter and glamour in Gotham, with over 120 eye-popping performances from the world's leading burlesque dancers. Happy Birthday NYBF!
 

This summer, Noka Productions took part in producing Wendy James' short film, Savage, a film that tells the story of a dangerous entanglement between an idealistic teacher and her troubled student.

For this film, Hazuki was Producer and Andrey was DP. We met a great bunch of wonderful cast and crew for this production. It was 6 days of intense filming, but we had great fun.

Wendy James is a multiethnic, multiracial writer/director whose aim is to make films which provoke a deeper understanding of the dynamics surrounding race, gender, and class in America, and how hierarchy stands in the way of a greater humanism.  It is currently in post-production, and we look forward to seeing the final cut!
For more information about the film, please see their facebook page.

Recently we have been collaborating with LaMicro Theater in producing visuals for their multimedia performance titled "City Non Specific", which will be running at the New York International Fringe Festival this year. It was great fun for us as we set foot in a new terrain of filmmaking, and we were very happy to work with inspiring actors and dancers. And thank you, LaMicro Theater, for giving us the full artistic freedom given to us to be as experimental as we wanted. To taste, here is a sample of the video we produced.

City Non Specific explores life in a non-specific cosmopolitan city, exploring the experiences of public transportation, shopping, love, loneliness, rejection, and leisure, where people frequent and involve themselves in conflicting and humorous situations. They are currently in the last stage of their fundraising campaign, and we wanted to spread the word. Only a bit more to go!

A very cool opportunity came this spring when the founder of the moveable feast orchestra commissioned us to produce and direct a short film for them. The theme was "the secret life of instruments". What do instruments do when they are not being played? Originally we had wanted to do puppetry or stop motion animation, but with a tight deadline and other limitations, we decided to use real people. They story: a violin that escapes.

moveable feast orchestra is a new and remarkable group of young classical musicians. What is most unique about them is their nomadic style of performing. In 8 hours, and anywhere, they will come and set up a mobile frame that creates a enclosed space that resembles a Richard Serra's structure. The space accommodates to play and hear classical music in the best acoustic environment, whether it be in a warehouse or a dance hall. Their mission is to revitalize classical music and to bring it closer to a younger and newer generation–an idea that Noka supports 100%. It was an honor and a pleasure to work with these talented musicians, and we hope more opportunities come in the future.

Some big challenges for the actors in the film was that there is completely no dialogue (the film features music performed by moveable feast orchestra) and that they were not human. The film was entirely founded on the pantomiming craft of the actors, which was superbly executed by our wonderful cast Isabelle Zufferey Boulton and Magnus Jonsson. Thank you to all the cast and crew who worked long hours to pull this film together. We hope to be sending this film out for the larger audience to see soon! For more info on this film and cast/crew, please visit our The City and the Violin page.

We are a big fan of performance art. A live show offers a "real" experience that a film cannot. And of many performances held in New York City, we definitely like to see dance. In April, Noka was lucky enough to be commissioned to film and edit a dance performance. The piece was "(glowing)" by butoh-trained dancer/choreographer Kota Yamazaki and his company Fluid hug-hug, held at the Japan Society on April 27, 2012. It was a magnificent 70-minute performance that was inspired by the great modern-day novelist Jun’ichiro Tanizaki’s essay, In’ei Raisan(In Praise of Shadows), which describes Japan’s appreciation of the refined beauty found in darkness and shadows. Six performers, including dancers from Senegal and Ethiopia, joined Yamazaki to investigate shadows/darkness that blur forms of body and boundaries between illusion and reality.

In March, we were sponsored by an inventor in New York City to produce a commercial for his new product, the MirrorCase. It is an iPhone case that allows you to take videos and photos without having to block your face with your phone. "Don't let your phone come between you and your life" was the slogan. It's true, though. Whenever you want to take a good photo of a place, a person, a moment—you realize you're not looking at the actual subject. You see everything through your phone.

Seeing that this is a family-friendly product, we thought "how cute it would be if a baby AND a dog were in the commercial?" The answer: VERY CUTE. Thanks to wonderful baby Easton and his mommy Raena Rojo, and Spiggy, the client's extremely smart dog, we were able to shoot a commercial that makes you warm and fuzzy inside.

But it's hard pleasing the camera and the dog at the same!

We want to thank our crew, Andy Rath, Yuki Hayashi, Engin Kaplan, Alex Moreno, and Maureen Lewis for helping us on this production. Thank you also to our cast Raena and Easton Rojo, and our "iPhone face" actors Jack Ido, Stacie Rathbone, Justine Pierce, and Shuji Suzumori. For more information about this product, please visit the MirrorCase website. The commercial can also be seen on our Works page.