Directors Mohammad Rasoulof, O Mipo to obtain Kurosawa Akira Award at Tokyo Intl. Film Festival 2026

Tokyo [Japan], September 29 (ANI): Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof and director O Mipo can be honoured with the Kurosawa Akira Award on the thirty ninth Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), reported Variety. 

According to the outlet, the 2 had been chosen by a committee of filmmakers Yamada Yoji and Lee Sang-il, cinematographer Ashizawa Akiko and TIFF programming director Ichiyama Shozo.

The Iranian filmmaker gained the Golden Bear at Berlin in 2020 for ‘There Is No Evil,’ which later performed on the thirty third TIFF. His ‘The Seed of the Sacred Fig’ took the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 2024, and was additionally the Oscar entry for Germany for greatest worldwide function. 

According to the outlet, the filmmaker was nonetheless ending that movie when he needed to flee Iran in secret, shortly earlier than Cannes. He was jailed in 2010 whereas capturing a movie and arrested once more in 2022, then provisionally launched after eight months. He has shot a lot of his movies in secret and smuggled them overseas to display.

“Receiving the Kurosawa Award is a great honor for me. His films are profound explorations of the human condition and the moral choices we make in moments of crisis,” stated Rasoulof, as quoted by Variety. 

As for O Mipo, the filmmaker began out as a script supervisor after working at Obayashi Nobuhiko’s manufacturing firm. She made her function debut in 2006 with ‘The Sakais’ Happiness.’ ‘The Light Shines Only There’ (2014) gained her greatest director on the Montreal World Film Festival and was Japan’s Oscar submission.

‘Being Good’ was named greatest Asian movie on the Moscow International Film Festival. After a nine-year hole by which she had two kids, she got here again with ‘Living in Two Worlds’ (2024), which competed at Shanghai. Her newest, ‘How Dare You?’ (2025), performed in competitors at Zlin, reported Variety. 

The competition may even present a number of Kurosawa’s favourite movies, together with two of his personal. The lineup is Charles Chaplin’s ‘The Circus’, 4K restorations of Kurosawa’s ‘Sanshiro Sugata’ and ‘Ikiru’, and Abbas Kiarostami’s ‘Where Is the Friend’s House?’.

The competition is ready to run from October 26 to November 4. (ANI)