Japanese-Korean filmmaker Mipo O and Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof will receive the Kurosawa Akira Award at this year’s Tokyo International Film Festival.
According to Deadline, the award honours the legacy and continuing influence of renowned auteurs. It recognises 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.
Mipo O made her feature directorial debut in 2006 with The Sakai’s Happiness. She won Best Director at the Montreal World Film Festival for her 2014 film The Light Shines Only There, which went on to win 60 awards in Japan and internationally.
After taking a break from filmmaking for childbirth and childcare, O returned to features in 2024 with the box-office hit Living in Two Worlds. She followed it with 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,” the selection committee said.
Rasoulof, meanwhile, has faced censorship, prison sentences and filmmaking bans from the Iranian government. Despite those restrictions, he has continued to pursue his distinctive approach to filmmaking, often relying on guerrilla-style shooting.
He won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in 2020 for There Is No Evil. In 2024, he won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes for The Seed of the Sacred Fig.
“Director Mohammad Rasoulof has consistently produced profound works centred on the theme of human rights oppression under state regimes,” the committee said. “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 will also present a selection of Akira Kurosawa’s favourite films, including Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus (1928) and Abbas Kiarostami’s Where Is the Friend’s House? (1987). The festival will also screen 4K restorations of two of Kurosawa’s films, Sanshiro Sugata (1943) and Ikiru (1952).
The festival also announced that actor Hayato Isomura, known for Alice in Borderland and What Did You Eat Yesterday?, will head the Ethical Film Award Jury.
Three films from this year’s TIFF selection met the criteria for the Ethical Film Award: Brenda Lígia’s Amadeo and the Hypothetical New World from Brazil, Isabelle Stever’s I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming from Germany and Ukraine, and Vee Shi’s Time and Tide from Australia.
