Here at True Colors Festival, we are a big family of artists, creators and planners. In this instalment of the Meet the Family series, we introduce Nahoko Kodama, Japanese Language translator of the True Colors Film Festival 2020.

Name: Nahoko Kodama

Accolades: Director, Asia Media Network Communications Pte Ltd; Magazine editor and writer with over 15 years’ experience in publishing, English to Japanese translation and scriptwriting.

True Colors Festival event: True Colors Film Festival 2020

Event date: 3 to 31 December 2020

About the event: An online film festival that offered a selection of films that reflects the “One World, One Family” theme—one that speaks of the pressing need for greater awareness of differences, acceptance and celebration of human diversity. True Colors Film Festival showcased these issues through beautiful, thought-provoking and award-winning works by talented filmmakers from Asia and beyond. 

Q: Could you explain how you were involved in the True Colors Film Festival?

I translated English transcripts into Japanese for the creation of subtitles for three of the online dialogue sessions: Ethical Story-Telling, Cause Champions, and Separation, Injustice, Family.

Stream the dialogues on the True Colors Film Festival Vimeo channel

Image description: Bela (played by Lúcia Moniz) hugs her onscreen daughter in a scene from “Listen”, which was selected as Portugal’s Oscar entry for Best International Film.

Q: Could you share a memorable experience that you had while working on the film festival?

I was impressed with the consideration for ethics that the filmmakers and producers had. My work typically involves translating for commercial TV programs that aim only to reach high viewership rates without much consideration for ethics or to make something more meaningful. This was not the case with this film festival. I felt happy and a sense of fulfilment working on the True Colors Film Festival as I could contribute to conveying the meaningful message of the filmmakers, producers and curators to the audience.

Q: Which was your favorite film from the festival?

Listen was my favorite. I watched the film after translating the dialogue Separation, Injustice, Family featuring the Listen director, Ana Rocha de Sousa, and the film festival’s curator, Tan Bee Thiam. Ana said something during the dialogue that struck me, which was, “It’s to focus on that innocence, that doesn’t seem innocent”. I thought about the sin of innocence and the sin of belief… wealth between nations, inequality in society, the use of false sense of justice, the horror of a convenient system of controlling people—all of which are portrayed in the film.

Q: True Colors Festival is a series of performing arts events presented across geographies, in celebration of diversity and inclusion as “One World One Family”. What does the message “One World One Family” mean to you?

We must recognize and understand our differences. We should accept and respect all lives and not make distinctions.