The Tokyo International Film Festival will give its Kurosawa Akira Award to Iranian dissident Mohammad Rasoulof and Japanese director Mipo O, pairing an exiled filmmaker with a director who left the industry for nine years to raise her children.
Organizers announced the honor for the festival’s 39th edition, which runs October 26 to November 4. The award goes to directors whose work has made waves and who are expected to help shape cinema’s future. A committee of directors Yamada Yoji and Lee Sang-il, cinematographer Ashizawa Akiko and programming director Ichiyama Shozo made the selection. Capcom’s backing revived the prize in 2022 after a 14-year gap. Chloé Zhao and Lee received it last year.
“Receiving the Kurosawa Award is a great honor for me,” Rasoulof said. He praised Kurosawa’s films as explorations of the moral choices people make in a crisis.
Rasoulof lives in exile in Europe. Iranian authorities sentenced him in May 2024 to eight years in prison, whipping and a fine, and he left the country in secret while still finishing “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” That film won a special jury prize at Cannes and became Germany’s submission to the Oscars, earning a nomination for best international feature. His earlier drama “There Is No Evil” took the Golden Bear at Berlin in 2020. The committee cited his body of work on state repression of human rights and noted the censorship, imprisonment and filming bans he has endured, which have pushed him toward guerrilla-style shooting. Tokyo will host the Japan premiere of his short “Sense of Water,” made with Cate Blanchett’s Displacement Film Fund.
Mipo O, who has worked for 20 years, debuted with “The Sakais’ Happiness” in 2006. “The Light Shines Only There” earned her best director at the Montreal World Film Festival in 2014 and was Japan’s Oscar submission. “Being Good” won best Asian film in Moscow in 2015. She then paused her career, and returned in 2024 with “Living in Two Worlds,” which competed in Shanghai. The committee praised her consistent focus on people living on society’s margins, portrayed without simple judgments of good and evil.
The festival will also screen 4K restorations of Kurosawa’s “Sanshiro Sugata” and “Ikiru,” alongside Chaplin’s “The Circus” and Abbas Kiarostami’s “Where Is the Friend’s House?” Actor Hayato Isomura will lead the jury for the Ethical Film Award.
