The Japanese director Hiroki Hayashi was born in 1974. He began his career as an assistant director under several prominent directors, including Takeshi Kitano and Kiyoshi Kurosawa. At the age of twenty-eight he founded the film production company FireWorks and made his debut as a director. The first work that came from this initiative was Rakuda Ginza, which was selected at the Cairo International Film Festival and received an honourable mention. He is also the winner of the Special Jury Award at the Minsk International Film Festival for If I were to live another life… . Hiroki Hayashi stands out for his peculiar approach which allows him to organically involve local communities in the process of film production, as it can be seen in Going Home (2011).
