Takako Miyahira was surprised when SODEC supported Looking for Anne, her film which pays tribute to the influence of a Canadian literature classic, Anne of Green Gables, on the lives of post-war Japanese women.

‘I didn’t think they would support the film because it’s in English and Japanese and shot in P.E.I.,’ explains the Montreal-based director from her hometown of Okinawa, Japan, where she is currently promoting the $2.3 million Japan/Canada coproduction. ‘But they helped me before the Japanese government did.’

The original story idea came from Yuri Yoshimura, who produced with Claude Gagnon and her son Samuel Gagnon.

‘My mother always wanted to make a film about how important Anne of Green Gables was to Japanese women of her mothers’ age. It was really important to her,’ says Samuel Gagnon.

In the film, a 17-year-old Japanese girl travels to P.E.I. to find her grandmother’s first love, a Canadian soldier who gave his young love a copy of the Lucy Maud Montgomery book before they were separated.

‘For many Japanese women after the war, life was hard. I think Anne of Green Gables inspired them,’ says Miyahira. ‘I didn’t read Anne of Green Gables before I got involved with this project. But I had to read it. It changed my life. The book has an important message. Anne can teach us how to find happiness in our life.’

Miyahira’s film is inspired by the true story of how Anne of Green Gables was first introduced to Japan. In 1939, a Canadian missionary, Loretta Leonard Shaw, gave the book to her friend, translator Hanako Muraoka, because she wanted to introduce the story to young Japanese girls. In 1952, Muraoka published the translation, which went on to become a bestseller. Thousands of Japanese tourists travel to P.E.I. annually to visit Anne’s imaginary birthplace.

Last December, Looking for Anne won the top prize at the 2009 Asian Festival of First Films in Singapore and makes its North American premiere this week at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois. Gagnon says the film will likely be released in North America in the spring. The RVCQ runs to Feb. 27.