Tuesday night's Q&A for Still Walking at the SVA Theater one of the Festival's most understated, informative, touching events at TFF '09—just like the film itself. Hirokazu Kore-Eda's (Nobody Knows) latest has already been picked up for distribution with IFC, and that will come as no surprise to anyone who has seen the film. This complex story about three generations of a Japanese family is gentle and restrained on the surface, with layers of pain and dissention lying underneath. Introducing the film, Kore-Eda explained that he was inspired to make Still Walking after his mother died: "I began to think about all I could have done for her while she was still alive." He began writing the screenplay immediately after her funeral.

After the film, the hushed audience slowly readied itself to pose some questions. "How much of the film was autobiographical?" someone asked. "The situation itself is fictional," Kore-Eda explained, "but about half what the mother says to her son are things I heard from my own mother." The audience laughed; the mother in the film is incredibly critical of her son. "Do you feel like the tension between the older parents and their children is due to a post-World War II generation gap in Japan?" someone else asked. "I think the influence of World War II on that generation was significant," said Kore-Eda, "but that wasn't what I was focused on. I was focused on the gap in communication and understanding between people. I wanted to also portray other things though, things that show something getting passed down from generation to generation."

One inquisitor was particularly spirited. "I just wanted to ask you," the woman said, "if you knew that the musical Happiness, which is playing on Broadway, completely stole your idea from your film After Life. I loved that film, and there is this musical playing now, where people have to choose one moment from their lives, the happiest moment of their lives, just like in your film, and talk about it with everyone. I wanted to know if you had heard about that." There was a brief pause. "I had no idea," he said. "I would love to see it." Everyone laughed.
 

Still Walking screens throughout the Festival.

Read more Festival Q&As.