director | Japan Film Festival of San Francisco

★ Masato Harada
Director

Sekigahara Screening + Q&A
Sept.29 Sat @ 12:00 PM 【San Francisco Premiere】
2017 | 149 min | with English Subtitles | Directed by Masato Harada
Supported by Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco

Japanese director Masato Harada studied filmmaking in London and worked as a film critic in Los Angeles before he made his 1979 directorial debut Goodbye Flickmania, a Howard Hawks homage. After making films in the U.S.—including sci-fi cult hit Gunhed (1989) and Painted Desert (1993) — he returned to Japan to make the modern classic Kamikaze Taxi (1994), his first collaboration with Koji Yakusho. Having lived, studied and worked in Europe and the US for many years, he has established unique position in the Japanese film industry. A master storyteller in the tradition of Akira Kurosawa, he has been chosen to receive the New York Asian Film Festival’s Star Asia Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. He is also known as an actor and appeared in Edward Zwick’s The Last Samurai in 2003 and Ronny Yu’s Fearless in 2006.

Yui Kiyohara

★ Yui Kiyohara
Director

★ Our House Screening + Q&A
Oct.6 Sat @ 1:45 PM 【San Francisco Premiere】
2017 | 80 min | English Subtitles | Directed by Yui Kiyohara

Born in Tokyo in 1992.
She completed a master’s program in Directing at the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts, where Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa was her mentor. Our House is her graduation project and her first feature film. Winning the Grand Prix at the 2017 PFF Award helped the piece find a distributor and win a release in Shibuya early this year. From there it was on to successes at the Berlin and Hong Kong International Film Festivals as well as at MoMA and Lincoln Center’s New Directors/New Films, followed by an invitation to the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival as well as many others. She is considered as one of the freshest and most talented young directors of today’s Japan.

Sekigahara

sekigahara

★ Sept.29 Sat @ 12:00 PM 【San Francisco Premiere】
★ Special Appearance by Director Masato Harada

2017 | 149 min | with English Subtitles | Directed by Masato Harada
Supported by Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco

A film adaptation of Ryotaro Shiba’s best-selling novel which depicts a new interpretation of The Battle of Sekigahara, the greatest conflict of the Warring States Period in Japanese history. Daimyo Ishida Mitsunari (Junichi Okada) has doubts about the Shogun’s self-interest-based rule. Shima Sakon (Takehiro Hira) is a brave general and Hatsume (Kasumi Arimura) an Iga ninja who serves Mitsunari. Meanwhile, the ambitious Tokugawa Ieyasu (Koji Yakusho) persuasively wins over military commanders to his side. On the 21st of October in 1600, Mitsunari will somehow go to battle with Ieyasu at Sekigahara. Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see director Masato Harada!
>>About Director Masato Harada