The film’s director Kenji Tsukomoto (SOO-kah-moto) was born in Japan. He moved to the U.S. when he was 8, his family eventually settling in Utah.
Ashima is his first full-length documentary which took him more than a decade to complete. It follows the story of elite climber Ashima Shiraishi [AH-she-ma SHEE-rah-ee-shee].
While serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Japan, Tsukamoto saw the country was struggling with a high youth suicide rate. Kids would isolate themselves from society not for days, but for years. When he returned to the United States, he thought that would be the film he would make.
“The more I thought about it, the more I looked into it, I really wanted young kids to have a positive role model, and that's when my boss let me know about who Ashima was,” he said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour.”
Tsukamoto says he found the Shiraishi family by looking up their last name in a New York City phone book. He kept calling until he found the right family.
“They invited me to come visit them over Thanksgiving break,” he said. “I spent a week with them and told them experience of what I saw in Japan, what my goals were. They agreed to participate. I quit my job, and I ended up, in the next several years, living with them.”
Ashima is an only child. Her parents, who are artists, struggled to make ends meet.
“I wanted to show this bit of Ashima that people didn't get to see on social media or through climbing magazines, how smart she was and how hard she worked,” Tsukomoto said. “Her daily routine was crazy. I mean, she'd go to school and go straight from school to the climbing gym till 9 or 10 o'clock at night, then come home, would do homework till like midnight, 1 o'clock, and then just repeat that every day. I just wanted people to see beyond the social media posts that they'd seen from Ashima.”
Ashima, now in her mid-20s, is no longer competing. But as a teenager, she was among the few climbers capable of tackling bouldering grades considered exceptionally difficult for someone her age.
The film’s world premiere in New York sold out in January.
Locals can see Ashima in Park City Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Jim Santy Auditorium.
