First-day-screening event of new movie "Birthday Card"

The first-day-screening event of new movie "Birthday Card" was held at Shinjuku Wald 9 on 22 October which was attended by the director Yoshida Yasuhiro and cast members Hashimoto Ai, Miyazaki Aoi, Yusuke Santa Maria, Suga Kenta, Nakamura Aoi, Shinokawa Momone and Seiru. The movie features Hashimoto as Noriko who receives a letter from her late mother Yoshie (Miyazaki) on her birthday every year from the time she was 10 until she turns 20 which gives her the courage to live life to the fullest.

In line with the theme of the movie, Hashimoto, Suga and Nakamura prepared letters which they read aloud to the audience. Hashimoto wrote a letter to Miyazaki where she expressed regret for being unable to act together with her in this movie except for one scene despite the fact they played mother and daughter. As such, she was especially thankful for that one scene and felt that Miyazaki is a very loving person especially after they had been on the promotional tour together. Hashimoto expressed her wish to be able to work together with Miyazaki again which the latter responded with a smile.

As for Suga, he wrote a letter to Yusuke Santa Maria who played his father and expressed his gratitude towards the latter for keeping his stage play schedule in mind during the filming and supporting him during the process. Suga said that he had the idea of changing his stage name to Kenta Santa Maria which led Yusuke to say that he should drop the idea since there are many other people who use katakana surnames. Upon seeing the exchange between them, Miyazaki burst out laughing.

At the end of the event, Miyazaki commented that in these days, there are very few movies like this based on an original script and that she's very satisfied with how the movie has turned out. As such, she hopes that the movie can be seen by everyone nationwide and called upon the audience to spread the word about the film.

Sources: Oricon / Eiga.com