★ Shunji Iwai
Director
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A Bride for Rip Van Winkle Film screening + Q&A
Iwai was born in Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture in 1963, and began directing TV, Music Videos and Film in 1988. His distinct directing style has since been coined the “Iwai Aesthetic.”
In 1995, his film, Love Letter became a huge hit across Asia, particularly in China and South Korea, spurring a tourism spike to the film’s location of Otaru in Hokkaido. In 1996 his film, Picnic, won the Forum of New Cinema prize at the Berlin International Film Festival. Swallowtail Butterfly (also ’96) was a revolutionary step in movie and music collaboration by Iwai’s hiring of Takeshi Kobayashi as musical director. His next film came in 1998 with April Story. Two years later, Iwai released All About Lily Chou-Chou, which used the Internet as a storytelling medium and won several awards, including the Panorama section at BIFF in 2002, and both a Special Jury Award and Best Music Award for Takeshi Kobayashi at the 2002 Shanghai International Film Festival. Other major works include Hana and Alice (’04), The Ichikawa Kon Story (’06 documentary), the third segment in the 2010 omnibus film, New York, I Love You, a theatrical release of Friends after 3.11 (’12). Vampire was an official selection for the Sundance Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival Panorama category. In February 2015, he released his first feature-length animated film, The Case of Hana & Alice, which was an official selection of the 2015 Annecy International Film Festival.
© 2016 A Bride for Rip Van Winkle Film Partners
