About this project

Ruchiki is a short film starring Rachel Trachtenburg (of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players and Supercute!) and Japanese pop-star Reni Mimura, shooting principally in Ontario and New York City, June 2010. Presented by Saint Eliot and Company

Ruchiki is an ambitious short film examining the relationship of a young girl to her dreams, and the reality that lurks behind her fantasies. Through a whirlwind narrative—one which careens from Toronto to Tokyo, from a Japanese music video to an arena concert—Ruchiki tells the story of a girl determined to pursue her dreams, even at the cost of her innocence.

15 year-old Rachel Moeltz is an awkward high-school freshman. Home is the gray expanse of Pickering, Ontario, but Rachel dreams of life on the other side of the planet. Obsessed with Japanese pop-culture, she spends her time fantasizing (and training for) a life like her idol, Ayumi Takanawa, Japan’s biggest pop-star.

Half a world away, Ayumi’s reality is very different than Rachel imagines it to be. Under the thumb of the ruthless record executive that guided her to stardom, Ayumi is at the mercy of his sexual appetites and relentless work ethic. Whereas Rachel yearns for a life of exoticism and adventure, Ayumi longs for the exact opposite.

Added to the mix is Banner Tutilo and his sadistic reality show, EAT IT!, a “Punk’d”-esque prankfest that preys on the innocent. Rachel, Ayumi and Banner come together at Ayumi’s concert in nearby Toronto, after Rachel receives a call that she has been selected for a back-stage meet-and-greet with Ayumi, and the inevitable collision of fantasy and reality is set in motion.

This is a short film of enormous complexity, as our budget reflects: shot in multiple countries on 16mm film, Ruchiki is a fast-paced narrative that climaxes at a pop concert, with a underwater music video and a devilish reality tv show folded in. We mean to shake the landscape of short film; to show how much more can be done. To leave the audience reeling from this density of experience.

We have been humbled by the support we've already received, and we're getting close to realizing this most ambitious project. But we need your support to make this film a reality. Your contribution supports our pragmatic needs (food, lodging, equipment, post-production costs), while also serving as a commitment to independent filmmaking and to the social concerns of the film. In reaching our Kickstarter goal, Ruchiki moves one step closer to exploring a generation's growing disconnect from reality, exposing widespread abuse in Japanese pop culture, confronting our cruel and soulless mass media, and otherwise setting the world on fire.

We are so grateful to those of you that can (and even those of you who can't) find something in your piggy bank to become a part of Ruchiki. Arigato.

Written by Peter Warren / directed by Matt Paley / produced by M. Fletcher Deitch, Liz Phelps, & Jake Teresi / cinematography by Brian Barth / art direction by Sasha Winters.