DIRECTOR
Jeff Mizushima
Jeff Mizushima’s award winning directorial debut, ETIENNE!, which he made right out of film school, got him named as one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film in Filmmaker Magazine in 2009. ETIENNE! was a story about a man taking his terminally ill dwarf hamster on a road trip to see the world before it dies.
In 2013, Jeff left indie filmmaking to work in the health and wellness industry, after the SXSW festival premiere of a feature he wrote and edited, SAKE-BOMB. That film was about the Asian American experience as framed within a raunchy buddy comedy, striving to be offensive and inappropriate for social commentary and debate.
Jeff had found more fulfillment working in fitness than the trivial world of entertainment. However, after years of missing the creative side of the film business, Jeff quit his full time job to go back into the hell he thought he escaped from, but with a different, less desperate and abusive, perspective.
WHO IS LUN*NA MENOH? is a feature documentary over twelve years in the making. Jeff started filming the Japanese conceptual artist, Lun*na Menoh, in 2007 around the same time frame as his first narrative feature. The goal was to complete Lun*na’s documentary after ETIENNE!, but due to budget, ego, and deep-rooted insecurities, the film wasn’t finished until 2020.
Jeff now charades as a born again filmmaker, getting back to writing and developing smaller projects independently. He also got into fitness photography, which he grew a passion for during his time in the health and wellness community. Please pray for him.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Lun*na Menoh produces her own fashion shows that are about fashion shows, where she not only designs all the clothing, but also stage-manages, directs, and performs her own live music that poke fun commentary about the nature of the high fashion show culture. My approach to this documentary is framing her life’s work within her largest fashion show she’s ever produced. During the course of 24 hours, I show the lead up to the show, the rehearsals, the show itself, and after the show. In between that timeline, I intercut flashbacks of previous shows, interviews, and work Lun*na has done throughout her decades-long career. This will complement the events that happen during the present show. The cumulative effect should reveal the highly conceptual, witty, and creative world of Lun*na Menoh.