We Exist

Director: Felicity Tillack
Release Year: 2024

For nearly two decades, Kyoto-based Australian writer, photographer, and filmmaker Felicity Tillack has been exploring Japanese culture and the nuanced layers of identity through her blog and YouTube channel, Where Next Japan. Her work often moves between the intimate and the expansive, from personal reflections to sweeping portraits of Japanese life. With her latest project, the bilingual docu-series We Exist, Tillack shifts her focus to a community whose voices are often muted or invisible in mainstream narratives: Japan’s LGBTQIA+ population.

 

The series is both a road trip and a set of deeply personal conversations. Traveling across Japan, We Exist blends sit-down interviews with on-the-ground footage, offering viewers a rare chance to see the country through the eyes of queer individuals from Tokyo to rural Shikoku. The result is part documentary, part moving human mosaic, a combination that seeks to both inform and connect. Episode 1, titled Be Yourself, begins in Tokyo’s bustling streets before moving south to Matsuyama in Ehime Prefecture. Along the way, the series’ producer and host, Tiffany Rossdale, meets an extraordinary range of people: activists, professors, cabaret hostesses, Shikoku’s first transgender city councilor, bar owners and their patrons, and everyday citizens encountered on the street. Each encounter adds texture to the portrait of queer life in Japan, from the capital’s cosmopolitan energy to the quieter rhythms of smaller communities.

 

For Rossdale, the project is more than documentary work, it is a mission born of lived experience. Speaking in an interview for The Heroines, she reflected, “We Exist was born from a place of deep longing… for visibility, for connection, and for healing. Living in Japan as a transgender Filipina, I know what it feels like to navigate life with layers of identity that are often misunderstood or completely invisible. I’ve met so many incredible queer individuals over the years whose stories are powerful but rarely heard. I felt a responsibility to do something and to create a platform where our stories could be seen, heard, and honored.” This ethos is evident in the series’ tone. Rather than centering only the glamour sometimes associated with queer life, We Exist dives into what Rossdale calls “the real lives behind the labels”, stories of struggle, quiet victories, joy, and resilience. Each segment underscores the diversity within the community, revealing not only the differences but also the deep commonalities that unite LGBTQIA+ people in Japan.

 

For Rossdale, stepping into the role of both host and storyteller brought its own challenges. “I wasn’t just asking others to be vulnerable,” she explained to The Heroines, “I had to be just as open, just as raw. It wasn’t always easy, but it was healing. This project became a love letter to our community. A reminder that we exist, we belong, and we deserve to be seen not as ‘others,’ but as fully human.” One of the most poignant moments of Be Yourself is Rossdale’s conversation with Watanabe Hiroyuki, Shikoku’s first transgender city councilor. Without a pre-interview, the exchange unfolds organically, revealing a rare intimacy between two women who share both cabaret backgrounds and a deep commitment to advocacy. “Her presence, her work, and her courage are truly inspiring,” Rossdale said. “She’s not only breaking barriers, she’s creating space for others to follow. The way she uses her lived experience to advocate for our community gives me so much hope.”

 

By capturing both personal and public aspects of LGBTQIA+ life, We Exist aims to foster empathy and awareness. Tillack describes the series as an invitation: “We Exist aims to share stories of hope and engagement, while giving an insight into the realities of being a marginalized population striving for access to their rights. Come along on a journey through Japan, hearing the voices of the LGBTQIA+ community, and, together, imagine a world where we all can exist.” In a country where LGBTQIA+ representation in media remains limited, We Exist offers something rare, a compassionate, unfiltered look at queer lives across regions and generations. It is as much about listening as it is about seeing, a gentle yet determined act of making the invisible visible.

 

Whether it’s in the laughter between two trans women sharing a memory or in the quiet strength of a rural activist speaking truth to power, the series reminds us that these stories matter. In giving them a platform, We Exist doesn’t just document. It affirms.

 

via: youtube

tokyofilmgoer.com and The Heroines of My Life

Image credits: YouTube

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