Kiyoshi Kurosawa

Born in Kobe on July 19, 1955, Kiyoshi Kurosawa started making films about his life in high school. He studied at Rikkyo University in Tokyo under the guidance of prominent film critic Shigehiko Hasumi, where he began making 8mm films.

Though they share a surname, he is not related to filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.

Academic career

From 2005 to 2023, Kurosawa was a Professor at the Tokyo University of the Arts's Graduate School of Film and New Media.

Kurosawa began directing commercially in the 1980s, working on pink films and low-budget V-Cinema (direct-to-video) productions such as formula yakuza films. In 1981, his 8mm film Shigarami Gakuen (しがらみ学園) was nominated for the Oshima Prize at the PFF (Pia Film Festival). In 1983, after he worked with Shinji Soumai, he released his first feature film Kandagawa Pervert Wars (1983). He became popular after The Excitement of the Do-Re-Mi-Fa Girl (1985) and The Guard from Underground (1992).

In the early 1990s, Kurosawa won a scholarship to the Sundance Institute by submitting his original screen play Charisma. Then, he was able to study filmmaking in the United States, although he had been directing for nearly ten years professionally.

Kurosawa first achieved international acclaim with his 1997 crime thriller film Cure. A year later, he completed two thrillers back-to-back, Serpent's Path and Eyes of the Spider, both of which shared the same premise (a father taking revenge for his child's murder) and lead actor (Show Aikawa) but spun entirely different stories. In March 1999, the Hong Kong International Film Festival presented his first retrospective, a five-title-program including The Excitement of the Do-re-mi fa Girls, The Guard from Underground, Serpent's Path, Eyes of the Spider, and License to Live.

Kurosawa followed up Cure with a semi-sequel in 1999 with Charisma, a detective film starring Kōji Yakusho. In 2000, Seance, Kurosawa's adaptation of the novel Seance on a Wet Afternoon by Mark McShane, premiered on Kansai TV. It also starred Yakusho, as well as Jun Fubuki (the two had appeared together in Charisma as well). In 2001, he directed the horror film Pulse. Kurosawa released Bright Future, starring Tadanobu Asano, Joe Odagiri and Tatsuya Fuji, in 2003. He followed this with another digital feature, Doppelganger, later the same year. Both Bright Future and Doppelganger have nominated for the Cannes Film Festivals

In 2005, Kurosawa returned with Loft, his first love story since Seance. Another horror film, Retribution, followed in the next year. With his 2008 film, Tokyo Sonata, Kurosawa was considered to step "out of his usual horror genre and into family drama".

He has written a novelization of his own film Pulse, as well as a history of horror cinema with Makoto Shinozaki.

In September 2012, it was announced that he would direct 1905, a film starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Shota Matsuda and Atsuko Maeda. In February 2013, it was announced that production of the film had been cancelled before filming could start.

Kurosawa directed a 2012 five-part television drama Penance. Beautiful 2013, an anthology film featuring Kurosawa's Beautiful New Bay Area Project, screened at the Hong Kong International Film Festival in 2013.

Kurosawa's next feature film Real, which stars Takeru Sato and Haruka Ayase, was released in 2013. He won the Best Director award at the 8th Rome Film Festival for Seventh Code later that year.

His 2015 film Journey to the Shore was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival where he won the prize for Best Director.

In 2016, his thriller Creepy premiered at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival. The film marked Kurosawa's first cinematic return to the horror genre since 2006.

His 2017 film Before We Vanish was screened in the Un Certain Regard category at the Cannes Film Festival.

His 2019 film To the Ends of the Earth was screened as the closing film in the Piazza Grande program of the 72nd Locarno Film Festival.

In 2020, Kurosawa won the Silver Lion for Best Direction at the 77th Venice International Film Festival for his film Wife of a Spy.

Kurosawa directed three films in 2024: the short film Chime, a French-language remake of Serpent's Path, and the thriller Cloud. The latter was nominated for Best Film at that year's Sitges Film Festival.

His first jidaigeki (period drama) The Samurai and the Prisoner is scheduled to premiere in June 2026.

Political activities

In December 2023, alongside 50 other filmmakers, Kurosawa signed an open letter published in Libération demanding a ceasefire and an end to the killing of civilians amid the 2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, and for a humanitarian corridor into Gaza to be established for humanitarian aid, and the release of hostages.