Making Curry Rice from Scratch

Director: Aki Maeda
Producer: Arata Ōshima
Cinematographer: Aki Maeda / Takayuki Matsui / Chieko Mizukami
Editor: Koki Oyama
Music: U-zhaan
Sound: Tomoko Kaneda / Kenichi Tominaga

People today have long been accustomed to the conveniences of city life...
Their goal is simple: To make a bowl of curry rice from scratch. This year-long "adventure" was fully documented on camera.

The project was initiated by Yoshiharu Sekino. An explorer and physician, Sekino embarked on the Great Journey in 1993, spending 10 years retracing the footsteps of humankind from its birthplace in Africa. Even after completing this grand adventure, his curiosity remained boundless.
After becoming a professor of cultural anthropology at Musashino Art University, Sekino led students in various projects, one of which involved crafting a handmade boat from scratch and sailing it from Indonesia to Japan. The curry-making project was part of a seminar with a similar theme: "By tracing the origins of things, we gain a deeper understanding of society. Through making curry, I want students to discover something meaningful, Sekino explained.
He has also been involved in documentaries, including Puujee (2006), which follows his encounter with a Mongolian girl, and Voyage of the Jomon and Pakuru (2015). In 2024, he made his directorial debut with Adventures of the Filthy Misfits.

The film is directed by Aki Maeda.
Maeda has directed numerous documentaries for programs such as ETV Special (NHK), NONFIX (Fuji TV), and Jounetsu Tairiku (MBS). As a producer, she has been involved in documentary films like Why Can't You Be Prime Minister(2020) and Kagawa District 1(2022). In 2023, she released NO Election, NO Life.  

Maeda describes the film as follows: 
"Many students gave up during the grueling journey of making a single bowl of curry, while others became so attached to the livestock (chickens) they raised that they struggled with the moral dilemma of killing them. This documentary reexamines the fundamental human acts of 'eating' and 'living'—things we often take for granted."