Photo Courtesy of TC-DM & Associates Keiko Ibi: “I learn about people from making movies.”

A Different Perspective
Filmmaker Keiko Ibi steps into the spotlight with Oscar nomination

By Calvin Liu
Keiko Ibi, a former Japanese beauty queen, is up for an Academy Award this year—but we never saw her on the big screen. That’s because she was nominated as a director and producer.

On March 21, Ibi will find out whether she won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject for her moving piece, The Personals: Improvisations on Romance in the Golden Years.

Born in Tokyo, Ibi was 19 years old when crowned Miss Japan Grand Prix, which, she is quick to note, is like the Miss America pageant and “has nothing to do with race cars.” After completing her duties as Miss Japan Grand Prix, Ibi’s talent agent enrolled her in acting and singing courses for over half a year in hopes that she would “become an actress or a CNN reporter.”

However, she soon lost interest in being on-screen, instead opting to pursue a career on the other side of the camera.

“I liked the entertainment business,” Ibi said. “[But] I was more interested in writing screenplays and directing.”

In 1991—after convincing her mother to allow her only daughter to study overseas—Ibi enrolled at Syracuse University to study filmmaking. But she found that the program at Syracuse shied away from actual filmmaking, and decided in 1993 to transfer to New York University, where The Personals became her thesis.

The Personals depicts members of an elderly Jewish comedy troupe who present themselves onstage as “personals” ads. Ibi said she was intrigued when she first met these seniors, whom she found to be “energetic, vivacious, really humorous. They held my hand, started telling me all kinds of stories.

“Usually, people don’t think that old people need a partner, love, sex, that sort of romance,” Ibi said. “I thought it was kind of interesting subject matter.”

While she jokes that a Japanese girl among Jewish elders is “as opposite as it can get,” Ibi credits this cultural gap for making her film so unique.

“I think I have a perspective that is really different from native American people. Maybe if you see those seniors, you won’t see that much,” Ibi said. “I found it interesting because I’m from a different culture. I was able to bring out something that you would not normally be interested in.”

At a time when many Asian and Asian American filmmakers in the United States focus on issues concerned with their own cultures, Ibi seems more exc

ited at the prospect of offering a new perspective on the unfamiliar.
“To do something unexpected sometimes is a little gratifying,” Ibi said. “Sometimes I enjoy it more than going back to my roots or exploring where I come from.

“I learn about people from making movies ... [For The Personals] it works outs that I was from a different place.”

“The Personals: Improvisations on Romance in the Golden Years” makes is U.S. television premiere on HBO in June.