The Japan premiere of “Happy Hour”, by director Ryusuke Hamaguchi and a talk show by the producer and casts was held on Monday, November 23, 2015.

Mr. Hamagughi has gotten attention from Japan and abroad. He came up with this feature film during a workshop of an impromptu play by citizen participation in Kobe and shot it. It is a huge movie, which is 5 hours and 17 minutes long.
This film stars 4 women who don’t have any experience about acting. They attracted the interest for winning the best actress award in Locarno International Film Festival.

After the screening of the movie, Mr. Hamaguchi was welcomed with a lot of applause from the audience.
After his entrance, the other casts appeared subsequently, Rira Kawamura who played Kasumi, Syouki Saka who played Kazama, Tanabe Yasunobu, the producer(s) Takada Masaki, Okamono Hideyuki and Nohara Tadashi. Yukie Tanaka appeared late and said, “Since I was watching the movie, I didn’t want to go on stage.” It made the atmosphere congenial.
The prominent members were all together. The floor warmed by the presence of the casts. During the talk show, the casts were asked some questions. Some of them were about the work of a group called “HATANO KOUBOU”, which developed the plot and was the reason why the movie is 5 hours long, and so on. Their answers made us understand about the movie deeply. One of the audience asked Mr. Hamaguchi about the end of the movie which remained in doubt. He answered, “I thought the problems of the characters shouldn’t be solved. It is important that the people who watched this movie care about the continuation of the story.” I felt his passion by his words.
Ms. Kawamura who played main character talked about a workshop on acting by Mr. Hamaguchi, which was held in Kobe. She said, "While playing the character, I felt the effect of him. On the filming location, I was playing with believing Mr. Hamaguchi.” We could learn the trust relationship of them by her words.

Finally, Mr. Hamaguchi said, “This movie will be complete after being watched by all of you. Hereafter, this movie is going to be released, so if you like this movie, please go to a theater and watch this movie again, and tell your friends about this movie.” The talk show was ended with a round of applause.