Director's Talk: Director Makoto Nagahisa & Kim Yutani

 

JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles is pleased to launch the new film screening program “Emerging Creators” to introduce new, up and coming talent in Japan’s film industry. In this program, we present the creators who have released up to three feature-length films in their career so far. The first creator that JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles introduced was Director Makoto Nagahisa, who became the first Japanese recipient of the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Originality at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019 for his feature-length film, “We Are Little Zombies.”

JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles also featured Director Nagahisa’s previous short film “And So We Put Goldfish in the Pool.”, which first caught the eye of festival programmers and brought him international attention when he won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017.

On September 1, JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles hosted a live director’s talk online with Director Nagahisa and Kim Yutani, the programming director of Sundance Film Festival. This talk reunited them for the first time since Kim Yutani’s selection and nomination in conjunction with the world premiere of “We Are Little Zombies” at Sundance Film Festival in 2019. During the webinar, we explored the director’s unique world and the potential for Japanese films in the international market.

*To watch the video in full screen, please click on the image above, then click on the YouTube icon on the lower right-hand corner.

Speakers

About Makoto Nagahisa
Born August 2, 1984 in Tokyo, Nagahisa began directing films and music videos while working at a major ad agency as a commercial planner. In 2017, he wrote and directed the short film And So We Put Goldfish in the Pool. and was the first Japanese to win the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the 33rd Sundance Film Festival. His full-length feature film, We Are Little Zombies received the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Originality at the Sundance Film Festival. His latest work is an advertising short film for Gucci, released in August 2022.

About Kim Yutani
Kim Yutani is the Director of Programming of the Sundance Film Festival; she assumed that role in 2018. She began programming short films for the Festival in 2006, and became a feature film programmer in 2009, focusing on US and international fiction feature films, overseeing short film programming, and working on the Festival’s Offscreen panels and conversations. She was instrumental in creating Sundance Film Festival: Hong Kong, which has now expanded to become Sundance Film Festival: Asia.

Promotional Partners