from November 28, 2005

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“Second Moon” director Masahiro Sugano

Floating down the Chicago River in a canoe with his roommate, Sundance veteran Masahiro Sugano was struck with what would become the catalyzing image of his debut feature “Second Moon.”

“She was all bundled up and looked like a Santa Claus,” Sugano recalled. “The image stayed with me for a long time.”

He said he was reading ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ at the time, “and I wanted to pursue a film about how we view relationships. These ideas got mixed up together. It was difficult to put into a coherent story, but I think we managed.”

Andre Ing stars in the “neo-Yakuza romantic farce” as an agent of the underground libertine group “Art of Love,” who betrays his group’s principles when he falls for a Japanese girl (Jennifer Shin) and finds himself at odds with his boss (Jim Finn).

Jim Finn in “Second Moon”

Sugano and producer Sang Hoon Lee raised the budget for “Second Moon” from private investors through Sugano’s Eye from the Sky, Inc. and shot here for a month, wrapping in mid-November.

James Heck shot on HD. Crew includes production designer Justine Lieb, production manager Brandi Wright and production coordinator Katie Irwin.

“We hope for theatrical distribution,” Sugano said. “We have to see if we can get a producer’s rep involved and start making strategies and try to create some buzz. I don’t intend to do random festival applications.”

Eye from the Sky is a full-service that produces commercials, music videos, animation, motion graphics and also provides production management, consults for fine art production and foreign language production.

Its recent work include spots for Motorola and agency 141 Worldwide, currently running on Jumbotrons at NFL stadiums; Gino’s East and Safer Ride Vest, the trailer for the 2005 Asian Film Festival and background video for Frankie J’s Lithium Tour.

A UIC grad, Sugano’s short “Hisao” garnered a 1997 Student Academy Award nomination and was a selection of the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. Sugano returned to his native Japan from 2000-2002, where he worked for renowned filmmaker Takeshi Kitano’s Office Kitano.

In the coming years, Sugano hopes to “get my second feature ready to go, put my company in better shape, own my own building, and continue commercial and music video production as well as feature films,” he said.

Eye from the Sky is located at 1456 N. Dayton, Suite 301; phone, 312/804-2035. See www.eyefromthesky.net. —Ed M. Koziarski

Ed M. Koziarski is co-director of the feature film “The First Breath of Tengan Rei”. Email:

I worked on the film, and like this piece. One thing though: The lead actor was 'Andre', not "Andrea". Thought you should know. —Mike Katzenstein

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