Toshio Hirano was born in Tokyo, Japan in the 1950’s. As a teenager he became interested in bluegrass and country music and later became inspired by the Mississippi legend, Jimmie Rodgers. Toshio learned to play banjo, guitar and mandolin and continued playing music through college, after which he immigrated to the USA to pursue his love of the music. After first visiting the Appalachia region-the heartland of Bluegrass music-he then lived in Atlanta, Nashville, Minneapolis and Austin, Texas. San Francisco has been his home since 1986 and he plays regularly in cafes and bars around town. The deep romantic nature of country music—tales of trains and cowboys and broken hearts-continues to sustain Toshio’s imagination and art. “Waiting for a Train” was shot on location, capturing beautiful performances by Toshio Hirano and his trio, performing in San Francisco speakeasys, on moving vintage passenger trains, and by the riverside. Intercut with some of his performances, Hirano speaks about novelty, authenticity and heritage-how the fact that he is Japanese both helps him-in that it attracts a crowd interested in the novelty aspect-and hinders in that his ethnicity has little to do with his love and passion of the music. He also relates the moment he discovered Jimmie Rodgers-an amazing, transcendent epiphany that would forever change his life. It’s an incredible singular moment of discovery and rebirth rendered here in an eloquent cinematic poem. Like Jimmie Rodgers and the song of the same name, in many ways, Toshio Hirano was ‘Waiting for a Train’ and when it arrived, it changed his life forever. “Waiting for a Train” has screened in the San Francisco International Film Festival as well as the Asian American International Film Festival in New York, among others. It has won audience awards as well as the Murphy and Cadogan Fine Arts Fellowship and the John Gutemann Filmmaker of Excellence award.