Mr. Okayama—who describes himself as a ‘salary-man,’ working at a Tokyo metal company—spent the 1980s competing as a professional basketball player with Japan’s national team. He also happens to be the the country’s tallest man. Diagnosed with Gigantism, Mr. Okayama—who was known as chibi, or ‘tiny,’ during his playing years—is the subject of this thoughtful profile from filmmaker Terry Rayment, who calmly follows the former Olympic athlete’s thoughts as he muses over life, size, and society in modern Japan. “The origin of this film began as a visual experiment of sorts, that explored the spatial relationship between man and structure in Japanese culture. After discovering and speaking with Mr. Okayama, we knew the story had much more depth and humanity than we originally realised. We wanted the style to be non-obtrusive, with long takes and elementary compositions—letting his life’s story come to the foreground.”
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