Ema Ryan Yamazaki’s first feature documentary, “Monkey Business: The Adventures of Curious George’s Creators,” premiered in 2017 and won the Audience Award at the Nantucket Film Festival. She has also directed documentaries for television, including “Monk By Blood” and “Scorsese’s Silence.”

“Koshien: Japan’s Field of Dreams” will premiere at the 2019 DOC NYC film festival on November 12

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

EY: “Koshien: Japan’s Field of Dreams” is an unexpectedly shocking window into Japanese society and its struggle to balance tradition and progress, through one of its most popular cultural phenomenon: high school baseball.

Our main character is Coach Mizutani’s , whose whole life has been in preparation for the historic 100th Koshien, the wildly popular High School baseball tournament that defines the Japanese summer.

A stubborn, but passionate man, his martial brand of baseball in Yokohama maintains all that is beautiful, if extreme, in the uniquely Japanese form of the sport — rigorous year-round training, shaved heads, and self-sacrifice. The players believe in his message that their primary goal is to grow as human beings, so cleaning the grounds and keeping impeccable manners are as important as honing their skills.

However, beyond the company line, Mizutani boils with desire to validate his career by reaching the sacred grounds of Koshien. Having always prioritized his work over family responsibilities, he has never seen his 15 year-old son, Kosho, play baseball.

Rather than take him onto his own team, calling on his well-earned web of connections, he sends Kosho away to be raised by a disciple in the remote prefecture of Iwate. Coach Sasaki, though, has outgrown the ways of his mentor.

After having raised Major Leaguers Shohei Ohtani and Yusei Kikuchi, he has a progressive vision that proposes a new direction for the sport. Sasaki takes inspiration from bonsai — although wires are needed to guide young branches, those wires must be taken off at the right time. So too does modern baseball require a delicate balance between enforcement and autonomy for players.

Across Japan, four thousand schools begin knockout competition, with only one winner from each prefecture able to advance to Koshien. Will all of Mizutani’s good deeds add up to a miracle, or will he prove to be a relic of a bygone era?

Can Sasaki, with Kosho in tow, challenge the system in a culture where the nail that sticks up is liable to be hammered down? In the crucible of the Japanese summer, the scoreboard will be their report card, and a referendum on their values.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

EY: After living in New York for nine years and returning to Japan in 2017, I had a renewed outlook of the country I grew up in. I was overly grateful of the trains running on time, of people lining up for things, and everyone generally being considerate of one another: things that are normal in Japan, but what I’d learned to be not necessarily so outside of Japan.

It was at this time that I watched Koshien, the annual summer high school baseball tournament, which I hadn’t seen in a decade. I saw in high school baseball — the helmets in a perfect line, the strict adherence to rules, the team-first mentality — a microcosm of Japanese society itself.

But in recent years, being one of the most extreme part of society, the Koshien culture had been forced to re-examine its values. Learning that the 100th Koshien was upon us, we thought picking high school baseball as a way to examine a changing Japan would make a documentary that could help explain the mysteries of Japan to the outside world.

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?

EY: We hope our audience will have deepened their understanding of Japan: the kind of society it is, its qualities, and challenges in these modern times. Much of the struggle Japan faces is universal — how to keep tradition while adapting to the influences of globalization, and how to honor where we have come from while facing a future that is no longer the same.

I often feel that Japan is only known for a few specific things internationally — sushi and anime, to name a few. I hope the film provides a more complicated and human view of Japan, and provides hints of understanding of why Japan is the way it is — where it has come from and where it might be headed.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

EY: We filmed for 100 days at four schools across Japan, with over 500 high school boys, many days in sweltering heat of over 100 degrees — so just logistically and physically, every day was a challenge.

Since the result of the summer tournament dictated much of the direction our story, and we had no way of knowing what was going to happen, we had to cover as many options as much as possible. With our main team, it was important that these teenage boys felt comfortable sharing themselves with us through their highs and lows.

In order to be successful at that, it was important to find the balance of having their respect and being their friend. High school baseball is very much a man’s world — and I took it upon myself to make sure my gender was an advantage in the matter and not a burden.

W&H: How did you get your film funded? Share some insights into how you got the film made. 

EY: The film is a co-production with Japan’s public broadcaster NHK, and our NY company. Therefore much of the out-of-pocket expenses were covered by NHK, and in return we made versions of the project to air domestically in Japan.

This allowed us to get the international version of the film made, as well as the added bonus of sharing our work with the Japanese domestic audience as well.

W&H: What inspired you to become a filmmaker?

EY: I’ve always been a storyteller — first in the form of over-dramatized talking of my day-to-day experiences to friends and family, then as a dancer choreographing my own stories and emotions, and then now as a documentary filmmaker.

I discovered that, especially in this day and age, documentary filmmaking can become a powerful tool in telling stories to make the world feel like a smaller place. This is what continues to motivate me to tell stories.

W&H: What’s the best and worst advice you’ve received?

EY: Worst advice: “Take to heart the advice you get!”

Best: “When more than three people you trust advise the same thing, start to listen.”

W&H: What advice do you have for other female directors?

EY: While it sometimes might feel that we have things harder our male counterparts, there have been opportunities and outcomes I have experienced that I feel came about because of who I am — including the fact that I’m a female.

There are many important stories to tell out there — find the ones you uniquely can tell. Have your support system, and don’t let anything stop you.

W&H: Name your favorite woman-directed film and why.

EY: “The Vietnam War,” directed by Lynn Novick and Ken Burns. I was fortunate enough to intern for Lynn, and she shaped my view of how to direct a project that tells a story of such epic proportions.

W&H: What differences have you noticed in the industry since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements launched?

EY: I have mostly been based in Tokyo for the past two years, and been observing the #MeToo moment from afar.

Unfortunately, not as much change has been sparked in Japan, and speaking up in the way I have seen people do in the U.S. has not necessarily produced a similar outcome. It has been inspiring to watch my peers take action in the U.S. — but there’s still a lot of work to be done.