John Veltri, Producer-Director-Photographer-Editorr
Marguerite Lorimer, Co-Producer-Photographer
Kyung Lee, Cinematographer-Editor
Atsuko Yasuda, Model-Artist
Endorsed by
Zen Shiatsu Master Waitaro Ohashi
in New York City, New York
The Masunaga Zen Shiatsu Clinic in Tokyo, Japan
COMPASSIONATE TOUCH
DEDICATED TO THE SPIRIT OF SHIZUTO MASUNAGA
Shizuto Masunaga 増永静人 (1925-1981) was born into a family of Shiatsu practitioners. He became a professor of psychology, then decided to pursue the study of traditional Shiatsu. He started a school of Shiatsu in Tokyo, and in the 1960’s began integrating the traditional methods of Shiatsu with western psychology and physiology.
In 1977 Masunaga brought Zen Shiatsu to the US. He then traveled to many countries, setting up Zen Shiatsu schools throughout the world. His reputation as one of the great Shiatsu Masters of our time remains strong, with a legacy that continues to grow.
ZEN SHIATSU : Compassionate Touch
featuring Zen Shiatsu Master Shizuto Masunaga
DIRECT-TO-DVD DOCUMENTARY Film In-Production
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ABOUT THE STORY
ZEN SHIATSU : Compassionate Touch opens with a short narrated history about Shiatsu in Japan. In an honoring of Zen Shiatsu Master Masunaga, viewers are then shown a series of images of Masunaga, photographed by Veltri in 1977. Sensitively photographed, Veltri’s sepia-toned photographs poignantly illustrate Masunaga’s historic first teaching in the US.
As a westerner who was so profoundly influenced by Masunaga and the healings he witnessed that he briefly left photography to became a Zen Shiatsu practitioner himself, Veltri ends the film with a short story of the experiences he had with Masunaga, and his own demonstration of Zen Shiatsu.
MATERIALS COMPILED FOR THIS PROJECT
Digital photographic images, HD videography, interviews, images of Zen Shiatsu treatment, written materials, archival images, archival footage. Music courtesy of Edie and Robin Hartshorne. Paintings courtesy of Atsuko Gutt.
