Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) is set to honour Iranian dissident filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof and Japan’s Mipo O and with the Kurosawa Akira Award.
The award is presented to filmmakers who have made waves in cinema and are expected to help guide the industry’s future, while also honouring Kurosawa’s legacy. A ceremony to present the awards will take place during the upcoming festival, which runs October 26–November 4.
Rasoulof is the Iranian independent filmmaker who has faced harsh government censorship, prison sentences, and filmmaking bans, but continues to make films that often rely on guerilla-style shooting.
He won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in 2020 for There Is No Evil, which went on to play Tokyo. Just a few years later in 2024, he was forced to flee Iran to a safe house in Germany after being sentenced by the Islamic Republic to eight years in prison, following the selection of his film The Seed of the Sacred Fig in Competition at Cannes. It went on to win the special jury prize at the festival and was Germany’s submission to the Oscars that year.
Rasoulof’s latest short film, Sense Of Water, was made with Cate Blanchett’s Displacement Film Fund and will receive its Japan premiere at TIFF.
Japan’s Mipo O has a filmmaking career that spans 20 years, beginning with feature debut The Sakais’ Happiness, which premiered at Busan in 2006. After following up with Here Comes the Bride, My Mom! in 2010, she won accolades and acclaim with The Light Shines Only There, which was Japan’s submission to the Oscars in 2014.
After Being Good won the best Asian film award at Moscow International Film Festival in 2015, she stepped away to raise a family and returned in 2024 with Living In Two Worlds, which played in competition at Shanghai. Her most recent feature was How Dare You?, which also premiered at Shanghai and revolves around a group of schoolchildren.
The filmmakers were chosen by a selection committee comprising filmmakers Yoji Yamada and Lee Sang-il, cinematographer Akiko Ashizawa and TIFF programming director Shozo Ichiyama.
“Receiving the Kurosawa Award is a great honour for me,” said Rasoulof. “His films are profound explorations of the human condition and the moral choices we make in moments of crisis. Kurosawa was a dynamic and inquisitive visual storyteller whose unique perspective on humanity, nature, and the world has made his work an enduring source of inspiration in cinema.”
“To receive such an extraordinary honour on the 20th anniversary of my directorial debut fills me with immense gratitude and deep humility,” said O. “Though my progress has been slow, reaching the Kurosawa Akira Award is a stroke of fortune that makes me truly savour what a happy cinematic journey I have had.”
The award was revived in 2022 after a 14-year hiatus and last year’s recipients were Lee Sang-il and Chloé Zhao.
TIFF will also present films directed by Kurosawa during the festival including 4K restorations of 1943’s Sanshiro Sugata and 1952’s Ikiru, alongside titles admired by the auteur including Charlie Chaplin’s The Circus and Abbas Kiarostami’s Where Is the Friend’s House?.
The festival further announced that this year’s Ethical Film Award jury will be led by actor Hayato Isomura, known for Plan 75 and Netflix series Alice In Borderland.
The jury will consider three films that meet the ethical principles of “thoughts and actions that empathise with people, society and the environment”. They include Amadeo And The Hypothetical New World by Brazil’s Brenda Lígia; I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming by Germany’s Isabelle Stever; and Time And Tide by Australia-based Chinese director Vee Shi.
The award ceremony and a talk session featuring Isomura are scheduled to take place on November 2.
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