Tokyo International Film Festival has announced that Japanese-Korean filmmaker Mipo O and Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof will be presented with the Kurosawa Akira Award at this year’s edition of the festival.
The award is designed to recognize the legacy and ongoing influence of renowned auteurs and is presented to filmmakers who have “made waves in cinema and are expected to help guide the industry’s future”. Last year’s recipients were Kokuho director Lee Sang-il and Chloé Zhao.
This year’s recipients were selected by a committee comprising Lee, veteran filmmaker Yoji Yamada, cinematographer Akiko Ashizawa and TIFF Programming Director Shozo Ichiyama.
After making her feature directorial debut in 2006 with The Sakai’s Happiness, Mipo O won Best Director at the Montreal World Film Festival with her 2014 film, The Light Shines Only There, which went on to win 60 awards in Japan and internationally. Following a hiatus for childbirth and childcare, she returned to feature filmmaking in 2024 with box-office hit Living In Two Worlds followed by How Dare You? last year.
“Since making her directorial debut in 2006 with The Sakai’s Happiness, director O Mipo has consistently created works that offer a multifaceted perspective on individuals living on the margins of society, refraining from viewing them through a simple lens of good vs. evil,” said the selection committee.
The TIFF selection committee also noted that Rasoulof has faced censorship, prison sentences and filmmaking bans from the Iranian government, yet has relentlessly pursued his unique method of filmmaking often relying on guerilla-style shooting. He won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in 2020 for There Is No Evil, and the Special Jury Prize at Cannes for The Seed Of The Sacred Fig in 2024.
The committee said: “Director Mohammad Rasoulof has consistently produced profound works centered on the theme of human rights oppression under state regimes. Notably, his recent films There Is No Evil and The Seed Of The Sacred Fig have gained international acclaim for their humanist perspective, which portrays even those who perpetrate oppression as ordinary citizens.”
TIFF is also presenting a selection of Akira Kurosawa’s favorite films including Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus (1928) and Abbas Kiarostami’s Where Is the Friend’s House? (1987), along with 4K restorations of two of Kurosawa’s own titles – Sanshiro Sugata (1943) and Ikiru (1952).
TIFF also announced that actor Hayato Isomura (Alice In Borderland, What Did You Eat Yesterday?) will head the Ethical Film Award Jury. Three titles from this year’s TIFF selection met the criteria for the Ethical Film Award: Brenda Lígia’s Amadeo And The Hypothetical New World (Brazil), Isabelle Stever’s I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming (Germany, Ukraine) and Vee Shi’s Time And Tide (Australia).
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