Mitsuo Yanagimachi

Mitsuo Yanagimachi
Born November 2, 1945 (1945-11-02) (age 66)
Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan
Occupation Film director

Mitsuo Yanagimachi (柳町光男 Yanagimachi Mitsuo, born November 2, 1945 in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan) is an award-winning Japanese screenwriter and film director.

Contents

Career

Born in Namegata District, Ibaraki, Yanagimachi attended the Faculty of Law at Waseda University but began studying filmmaking.[1] Working as a freelance assistant director after graduating, he started his own production company in 1974 and produced the documentary film God Speed You! Black Emperor (1976) about bōsōzoku.[1][2] He made his fiction film debut in 1979 with Jūkyūsai no Chizu. That and the later Himatsuri were based on novels by Kenji Nakagami. His 1982 work Saraba Itoshiki Daichi showed in the Competition at the Berlin Film Festival.[3] His films have often focused on youth (Who's Camus Anyway?), on ethnic minorities in Japan (Ai ni Tsuite, Tokyo), as well as on Asia (Shadow of China and the documentary Tabisuru Pao-jiang-hu).

Yanagimachi was awarded the Geijutsu Senshō Prize in 1985 by the Agency for Cultural Affairs.[4]

Director filmography

  1. God Speed You! Black Emperor (1976 documentary)
  2. Jūkyūsai no Chizu (1979)
  3. Saraba Itoshiki Daichi (1982)
  4. Himatsuri ("Fire Festival") (1985)
  5. Shadow of China (1990)
  6. Ai ni Tsuite, Tokyo (1992) (imdb)
  7. Tabisuru Pao-jiang-hu (1995 documentary)
  8. Who's Camus Anyway? (2005) (imdb)

Awards

Year Award Film Festival
1980 Best New Director Jūkyūsai no Chizu Yokohama Film Festival[5]
1985 Ernest Artaria Award Himatsuri Locarno International Film Festival
1986 Rotterdam Award Himatsuri Rotterdam International Film Festival
1992 Interfilm Award - Honorable Mention Ai ni tsuite, Tokyo Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival
1992 Special Jury Prize Ai ni tsuite, Tokyo Tokyo International Film Festival
2005 Japanese Eyes: Best Film Kamyu nante shiranai Tokyo International Film Festival

References

  1. ^ a b Ōba, Masaaki. "Yanagimachi Mitsuo intabyū". Criss Cross. http://c-cross.cside2.com/html/a20ya002.htm. Retrieved 12 May 2011. 
  2. ^ "Yanagimachi Mitsuo". Nihon jinmei daijiten + Plus. Kōdansha. http://kotobank.jp/word/%E6%9F%B3%E7%94%BA%E5%85%89%E7%94%B7. Retrieved 12 May 2011. 
  3. ^ "Programme". Berlinale. http://www.berlinale.de/en/archiv/jahresarchive/1982/02_programm_1982/02_Programm_1982.html. Retrieved 12 May 2011. 
  4. ^ "Geijutsu Senshō rekidai jushōsha". Bunkachō. http://www.bunka.go.jp/geijutsu_bunka/01geijutsuka/sensho/pdf/rekidai_jushosha.pdf. Retrieved 12 May 2011. 
  5. ^ "第1回ヨコハマ映画祭 １９７９年日本映画個人賞" (in Japanese). Yokohama Film Festival. http://homepage3.nifty.com/yokohama-eigasai/01-1979/01_1979_shou.html. Retrieved 2010-03-29. 

External links

Films directed by Mitsuo Yanagimachi