Marking Japan’s selection as the country of honour at this year’s Marché du Film, a delegation of 10 producers are in Cannes to forge fresh connections with international partners.
The Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (MPPAJ) has chosen five experienced and acclaimed producers to attend the market, while the Visual Industry Promotion Organisation (VIPO) will showcase five of the country’s hottest rising producers. All have upcoming projects and are pursuing international co-production opportunities. They will also participate in the market’s Producers Network.
Satoko Ishida
Ishida is a producer at Shochiku, one of Japan’s top production, distribution and exhibition companies. Her latest feature is The Samurai And The Prisoner, written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, which will debut in the festival’s Cannes Premiere section. Ishida previously worked with Kurosawa on suspense thriller Creepy, which was selected for the Berlinale in 2016.
Further credits include Naoto Kumazawa’s The Final Piece, which premiered last year at Busan; Takashi Shimizu’s supernatural horror Sana; and Yasuhiko Shimizu’s 2021 horror thriller Cube. She was also a producer on Daihachi Yoshida’s award-winning drama Pale Moon, which premiered in Competition at Tokyo in 2014.
Takeo Kodera
With a background in film acquisitions, Kodera brought several major international titles to Japanese audiences, including The Hunger Games franchise, Fury and Kingsman. He worked in development in Los Angeles before overseeing DreamWorks Animation’s distribution in Japan.
Now at Kadokawa, Kodera’s international co-production credits include Jie Han’s Namiya, Venice 2017 documentary Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s French-language remake of Serpent’s Path, which played in Competition at San Sebastian in 2024.
His upcoming project is Six Lying College Students, a South Korea-Japan co-production based on the 2021 bestseller by Akinari Asakura.
Yurika Koike
Koike is a producer at Toho, the studio giant behind Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One and Hirokazu Koreeda’s Cannes award-winner Monster.
Working in Toho’s planning and production department, she has spearheaded features such as Hideki Takeuchi’s 2024 sci-fi comedy What If Tokugawa Ieyasu Became Prime Minister? starring Minami Hamabe and Suguru Adachi, and Keiichi Kobayashi’s A Girl & Her Guard Dog — a live-action adaptation of a popular manga and anime series that was released in 2025. Both titles achieved international reach, with theatrical releases in multiple territories primarily across Asia.
She is also a member of the Watanabe Memorial Foundation for Creative Producers, a programme dedicated to fostering and nurturing the next generation of creative talent in the film industry.
Shiori Takata
Takata has spent 25 years at Toei Company, most recently being appointed director of international production, leading the development of Asian co-produced horror films. She previously oversaw global territories for the leading studio as head of film licensing and international sales, handling thousands of titles — from new releases to classics — across Toei’s library of more than 4,400 titles.
Takata also managed the sales of remake rights, including 100 Yen Love, which was adapted in China as the smash hit Yolo and earned more than $500m at the local box office in 2024. Her experience in international acquisitions includes the securing of Asian blockbusters and a broad range of other titles.
Jerry Zhang
Zhang is a producer at Toei Company, where he focuses on expanding the leading studio’s international footprint and developing cross-border productions. He is also CEO and founder of Mochi, a Tokyo-based production company dedicated to cross-cultural films and TV projects.
Zhang was previously Netflix’s head of Chinese-language content and VP of local production and operations at Warner Bros. Entertainment in Beijing. He was also instrumental in Beijing Galloping Horse Media’s $30m acquisition of Digital Domain in 2012.
Fluent in English, Chinese and Japanese, Zhang specialises in content development, market strategy and international dealmaking, with a focus on bridging eastern and western markets through culturally resonant storytelling.
Shoko Hashimoto
Tokyo-based Hashimoto began her career as an assistant director and assistant producer under acclaimed filmmakers Hideo Nakata (Ring) and Akihiko Shiota (Wet Woman In The Wind) before joining production company Django Film, where her credits included Kohei Yoshino’s Wednesday Disappears.
After joining Tokyo Theatres Company in 2020, Hashimoto helped launch the Hulu U35 Creators Challenge, a development initiative that supports emerging filmmakers aged under 35. In 2024, she led development on Natsuki Seta’s live-action adaptation of manga Worlds Apart, starring Yui Aragaki, which went on a festival run before receiving a theatrical release across Asia.
Hashimoto was selected for the Producer Hub at Busan’s Asian Contents and Film Market last October, initiating an international co-production that is now in pre-production.
Yusuke Kamata
After a major in politics and economics at Waseda University, Kamata moved to New York where he worked in a Japanese TV newsroom before joining US production company Gigantic Pictures.
Since returning to Tokyo in 2011, he has established himself as a bilingual producer across both scripted and non-scripted film and TV projects, and founded production company Generation 11 in 2012.
Kamata’s credits include HBO Max series Tokyo Vice, Chinese blockbuster Detective Chinatown 3, Netflix documentary Missing: The Lucie Blackman Case and Kosai Sekine’s Dust To Dust, which won the Human/Nature award at Tribeca in 2024.
Yuna Kamiura
Kamiura joined leading studio Toei Company in 2014 as an assistant producer, after studying film and theatre at Keio University. Moving to Osaka-headquartered broadcaster MBS in 2018, she produced 36 late-night drama series including Love And Bullets and Seven Orifices.
Kamiura has given focus to LGBTQ+ titles, producing series such as Ayaka Is In Love With Hiroko and Call Me By No Name. On the film front, she was an associate producer on Setsuro Wakamatsu’s Aircraft Carrier Ibuki.
Kamiura joined fast-rising banner K2 Pictures last September, where she is serving as co-producer on Nanako Hirose’s upcoming polyamorous romantic drama Between Two Lovers.
Hiroto Ogi
After many years based in Paris, Ogi returned to Tokyo as a producer specialising in cross-border co-productions. His credits include #Mito by Daisuke Miyazaki and Moonlight Shadow by Edmund Yeo, while more recent titles include Konstantina Kotzamani’s Titanic Ocean (Un Certain Regard) and Eugene Kotlyarenko’s Vintage Violence.
He has also served as line producer on several international productions shooting on location in Japan, including Guillaume Senez’s A Missing Part, which premiered at Toronto in 2024, and Olivier Peyon’s Tokyo Shaking.
Ogi launched Barravento earlier this year with US-based Spacemaker Productions, with a focus on international projects filming in Japan.
Ryohei Tsutsui
Raised in Japan and the US, Tsutsui studied at Tokyo University of the Arts’ film school. During his tenure, he founded Tokyo and Vancouver-based production company Trixta.
His credits include Kaori Oda’s Underground, which was selected for the Berlinale in 2025, and Bangkok Nites, which played in competition at Locarno in 2016. Further titles include Oda’s documentary Gama, and sci-fi drama Iguana Tokyo by Turkey’s Kaan Müjdeci.
Tsutsui is an alumnus of several international talent development programmes, including Talents Tokyo, EAVE Ties That Bind and Berlinale Talents.
