Filmmaker Kimi Takesue turns the camera on her spry Japanese-American grandfather, a retired postal worker and recent widower who has lived in Honolulu, Hawai'i for nearly a century. Amidst the solitude of his home routines – coupon clipping, rigging an improvised barbecue, lighting firecrackers on the New Year – we glimpse a vibrant inner life.
Grandpa Tom immerses himself in his daily rituals until he shows an unexpected interest in his granddaughter’s stalled romantic screenplay and offers advice both shrewd and surprising. Tom’s script revisions serve as a vehicle for his memories of love, loss and perseverance to surface.
Shot over six years, this intimate meditation on family and absence expands the vernacular of the “home movie” to consider how history is accumulated in the everyday and how sparks of humor and creativity can animate an ordinary life.
95 and 6 to Go explores important themes:
Intergenerational Relationships: 95 and 6 to Go illustrates a special bond between a grandfather and granddaughter and how different generations come together through a common artistic endeavor.
Japanese American Identity in Hawai’i: The film provides an important historical representation of a distinct but little known generation of Japanese-Americans in Hawai’i who were not interned during World War II.
Positive representations of Aging: Grandpa Tom is a man in his 90s who is sharp, funny, and full of vitality. Audiences of all ages have been inspired by Tom’s youthful attitude and determination to live.
Documenting Family Histories: 95 and 6 to Go motivates viewers and students to document, preserve, and share their specific family and cultural histories.