“Tokyo in 33 RPM,” a feature documentary about the jazz scene in Japan’s capital, is in the works from director Tanmay Srivastava and Synergy Pictures U.K.
The project will be presented at WAVES Film Bazaar, the market that runs alongside the International Film Festival of India in Goa.
The film moves between Tokyo’s working musicians, the people who run its jazz kissa – cafés built around listening to vinyl – and collectors who have chronicled the music for decades. It traces how jazz took root in Japan and how a new generation is reshaping it.
On camera are bassist Hino Kenji, known as Jino, whose father is trumpeter Hino Terumasa, the country’s best-known player of the instrument; Lucas Minoru Poulshock, a musician who goes by Mino and also hosts an Apple Music podcast and runs a listening bar; and historian and record collector Hori Toru. The crew also drops in on Masako, a Shimokitazawa jazz café now in the hands of a third generation, and on No Room for Squares, which Nakata Kohei founded. Gentle Forest Jazz Band and GCR Orchestra also appear.
“Tokyo is a city that never really slows down, but you can step into a small room where everyone has come for one reason: to listen,” said Srivastava. “Outside those rooms, you meet musicians taking jazz in completely new directions. I wanted this film to bring both worlds together. That’s the Tokyo I found most interesting.”
A first round of filming in Japan has already been completed, and the team has put together a short-form version from that material. A teaser is also out. Production will return to Tokyo April 1–22, 2027, for the final shoot, with completion targeted for June that year.
Srivastava produces alongside Sky Cheema and Jackson McKeever, with Poulshock, Paul Adrian and Jade Kurian as executive producers. Synergy Pictures U.K. and Double Drama Productions are the production companies. McKeever’s Lucky 18 is on board as production partner, while Latakoo, a technology company based in Austin, Texas, is production and technology partner.
U.K. producer Cheema said viewers don’t need any background in jazz to connect with the people in the film. “Some have spent their lives playing the music. Others have built places where people can hear it properly. What matters is how much of themselves they’ve put into it. That’s what we want audiences to come away with.”
The team is readying the feature for a possible international festival bow in 2027.
For now, the focus is April, when the cameras head back to Tokyo.
