Tokyo Melody: A Film about Ryuichi Sakamoto - Elizabeth Lennard

This brand new restoration of Tokyo Melody offers a rare, mosaic-like portrait of Ryuichi Sakamoto at a defining early moment in his career. Filmed over one intense week in 1984, Elizabeth Lennard follows him through recording sessions for Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia and across Tokyo’s parks, studios, and neon avenues, capturing him as musician, tinkerer, thinker, and cultural observer. Sakamoto reflects on technology, society, and the fluidity of time — echoing his wish to create “things that will only be understood by the grandchildren of the 20th century.” Blending staged scenes, Yellow Magic Orchestra concert fragments, and everyday city soundscapes, the film reveals an artist shaping the future in real time. Born in New York, Elizabeth Lennard is a photographer and filmmaker whose work moves between photography, cinema, and painting. Trained at the San Francisco Art Institute and later in film and photography at UCLA. She developed an artist-focused documentary approach through portraits of figures such as Gisèle Freund, the Labèque Sisters, or Ryuichi Sakamoto.