“Songs Of Our Own” is a short documentary about a community of artists, fans, and musicians in Japan who come together to host a festival honoring the music of the Grateful Dead.
Oshino Dead is a three-day music and arts festival held in Numazu, Japan. It features live performances from Grateful Dead tribute bands, and all the other staples of a U.S. Dead show: bootleg T-shirt sellers, food vendors, and dancing fans—but it all sits in the fog at the base of Mount Fuji. It was last held in 2019 and it’s making its return in March of 2026.
Since I first saw pictures and videos from the last Oshino Dead, I’ve wanted to see this festival, and the inspiring community behind it, honored with a documentary that lets them share their love for the Dead’s music in their own words. A documentary that’s presented entirely in Japanese and serves as a bridge between cultures and languages, as well as a document of our current moment in time and the music that connects people across the globe.
I was introduced to the Oshino Dead Festival by my friends Taka and Shinha. Taka and Shinha are artists and Deadheads from Kanagawa, Japan. They’ve sold bootleg T-shirts at Oshino, online, and at their own little store, since 2018. I started making my own bootleg Dead T-shirts a couple years earlier and our online friendship quickly grew through messages and countless traded tapes and T-shirts.
We all finally met in-person at the Dead and Company tour in 2023 where we spent two days selling shirts in the parking lot of the Forum in Los Angeles. It was spending time with Taka and Shinha that made those shows special for me and it was the music of the Grateful Dead that brought us together. In a world becoming increasingly more divided, it’s this exact feeling of connection we want to give audiences through our documentary SONGS OF OUR OWN.
If you would like to read our pitch document and learn even more about our approach for this film: click here.
It’s an ambitious and exciting project that we’ve been dreaming of making for years, and now we’re looking to raise the last bit of funding to make this dream a reality.
Update: As we enter the final days of our crowdfunding campaign, we’ve raised more than $7000 and we’re now over 90% funded! Thank you again to everyone who’s made a contribution! This film wouldn’t be happening without you. We’ve made a lot of exciting progress in recent weeks, including bringing onboard a team of local Japanese camera operators, and we’re stretching our little budget as far as it can go. We depart for Japan in less than one week! Any final contributions made in the next few days are crucial for getting us closer to our goal. We sincerely appreciate any support to help us make the best film we can! (March 9th, 2026)
Thanks to a few early investors and our own personal financial contribution, we’ve raised two-thirds of our $30,000 budget. This initial portion of the budget allows us to lock in many of our most-expensive necessities, such as flights, housing, and ground transportation, and get the ball rolling. In short, it gets our little crew over to Japan, puts roofs over our heads and food in our stomachs.
The remaining third of our budget is the most crucial for setting our production up to succeed. It allows us to hire a few local Japanese crew members to join our team and bring invaluable knowledge and expertise. It will also find its way directly on-screen as it allows us to use higher quality cameras and even shoot some sequences on 16mm film. It will provide us better assurance that we can solve little logistical problems that may likely arise when planning a short film shoot in a country five thousand miles away. Overall, it will elevate our project from a passion project to a legitimate production.
How You Can Help
The biggest way to help us right now is by making a financial contribution toward our budget. Ten thousand dollars is no small sum and we’ll likely need contributions both large and small to help us cross the finish line.
The marketplace for short docs is modest and they’re not what most might call “money-making” opportunities. Thankfully for us, making money isn’t the primary goal of this film—it’s to make a strong run of film festivals and reach as many people as possible. Though profits may not be likely for a film of this size, anyone who invests $500 or more will automatically be considered a co-producer and will receive a share of any future profits (equal to their investment’s percentage of the total budget). All contributors will be thanked in the film’s credits and receive a digital copy of the film as well as special gift (made by your favorite Deadheads) once the film is completed.
We’ve been very lucky to find support from family and friends when we were raising money for some small short films a little over ten years ago, but we understand that financial contributions are not possible for everyone. Any contribution, regardless of size, will be deeply appreciated and make a big difference in our odds of success.
Making A Contribution
So far we’ve been able to develop this film independently and we’d like to continue to do so. To expedite the donation process on our strict timeline, and avoid fees charged by other crowdfunding websites, we’ve been accepting contributions directly.
Below you’ll find an easy link to donate via Venmo. If you’d like to make a contribution via Zelle (or any other way!) please reach out and we’ll make something work!
Venmo (Click here or search @RudyJansen)
Anything Else?
If you would like any more information, or if you have some helpful tips for exploring Japan, I’d love to chat more! Please send me an email at rudyjansenfilms@gmail.com.