Jim­my Muraka­mi at the exhi­bi­tion of his Tule Lake Paint­ings in Dublin.

My life over the last few weeks seem to have revolved around Jim­my Murakami, the direc­tor of ‘Snow­man’ and ‘When the Wind Blows’ and also the sub­ject of my doc­u­men­tary ‘Jim­my Muraka­mi — Non Alien’. Din­gle Film Fes­ti­val innau­garat­ed a new annu­al award ‘The Jim­my Muraka­mi Award’ and asked me to present the first one to Jim­my. Din­gle also host­ed a spe­cial focus on Ani­ma­tion so all the lead­ing play­ers like Jam Media, Brown Bag and Car­toon Saloon were in Din­gle to give work­shops. So the venue was packed with ani­ma­tors who would con­sid­er Jim­my to be the man that gave this art form a kick start in Ire­land. Jim­my arrived in Ire­land 40 odd years ago to work on a fea­ture film and met a young lady called Etna and from then on Ire­land became his home.

I organ­ised a screen­ing of a short film made by Jim­my in 1969 called ‘The Good Friend’. It  was the first film award­ed a grant when the Amer­i­can Film Insti­tute was estab­lished. I also showed a short clip from ‘Non — Alien’ which told the sto­ry of Jim­my’s incar­cer­a­tion in Tule Lake con­cen­tra­tion camp in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia after Japan attacked Pearl Har­bour. He was only 8 years old at the time. He and his fam­i­ly spent 4 years locked up and Jim­my still sees it as one of the great scars in Amer­i­can his­to­ry. Jim­my took the stage and gave a great talk that took us through some high­lights of his won­der­ful life. Jim­my  is at an advanced stage of pre — pro­duc­tion on a fea­ture film based on the Atom­ic destruc­tion in Hiroshima.

All thanks must go to Din­gle for hon­our­ing Jim­my’s great con­tri­bu­tion to the Irish Film Indus­try. LONG OVERDUE. A few days lat­er the Dublin Branch of Roy­al Tele­vi­sion Soci­ety invit­ed Jim­my to give a keynote speech to its mem­bers on the grounds of RTE. The man is in great demand.