INTERNATIONAL JURY

Yoshi Sodeoka United States

Yoshi Sodeoka explores a multitude of media and platforms which comprises video, gifs, and print. His neo-psychedelic style stems from his love of and background in music. Noise, punk, and metal all influenced his development of complex, mind-altering visuals. His practice involved using digital video feedback, footage samples, and online imagery, and his videos’ audio soundscapes are often the result of intense collaborative work. Building an all-encompassing career, he reached many artistic fields including fine art, music (Psychic TV, Tame Impala, Oneohtrix Point Never, Yeasayer, Beck, The Presets, Max Cooper), editorial illustration (New York Times, Wired Magazine, The Atlantic, M.I.T Technology Review) fashion (Sandro Paris, Wad Magazine, Adidas, Nike), and advertising (Apple, Samsung). In 2013, he also initiated Undervolt & Co, a label to distribute the work of internationally-renown video artists.

Sodeoka’s work has been exhibited internationally, including at Centre Pompidou, Tate Britain, the Museum of Modern Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Deitch Projects, La Gaîté Lyrique, the Museum of Moving Image, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and Laforet Museum Harajuku. His artworks are in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Takeshi Nagata, Kazue Monno [TOCHKA] JAPAN

In 1998, they formed the filmmaker/creative duo "TOCHKA". They invented the animation production method "PiKA PiKA", which combines the techniques of long exposure photography and stop motion animation. By using light to draw lines in the air, anyone can create animation. TOCHKA's fields of activity range from experimental animation to contemporary art.

Mami Kosemura JAPAN

Mami Kosemura is a contemporary artist who uses photography and animation to explore the confluence of painting, video and photography, referring to classical European motifs and traditional subjects such as Japanese painting. In recent years, she has produced a series of concise and perceptive works with a greater variety of time expression and form, including video works using super-slow-motion photography, photographic works that compress long duration phenomena into a single photograph, picture scroll-type photographs and a series of sequential photographs. In 2005, she graduated from the Tokyo National University of the Arts with a D.A. in painting. In addition to solo exhibition at Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Japan, 2018, she has participated in many group exhibitions in Japan and abroad.Major awards received by the artist include Nomura Award from the Nomura Arts and Culture Foundation (2004) and the 26nd Gotoh Cultural Award of the Gotoh Memorial Foundation (2015). Kosemura’s art is included in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, The University Art Museum of Tokyo National University of the Arts, Gunma Museum of Art, Tatebayashi, Asia Society Museum (New York) and Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts (Taipei).

Ayumu Watanabe JAPAN

Born in 1966, Watanabe joined Studio Mates in 1986 and debuted his first key animation with the same studio. In 1988 he moved to Shinei Videos and was active in a wide range of roles including key animator, animation director, and director. Watanabe directed the short theatrical release Obachan no Omoide (2000), and the feature film Doraemon: Nobitaʼs Dragon 2006 (2006) and became a free agent in 2011. After that time, he tirelessly built up his directing portfolio with projects such as the TV series Mysterious Girlfriend X (2012), Danchi Tomoo (2012-15), If Her Flag Breaks (2014), Space Brothers (2012-14), and Ace Attorney (2016). Three TV series directed by Watanabe aired in 2018, including After the Rain, Gurazeni, and Major 2nd. in 2019, after 5 years of production years, Children of the Sea was presented to the world and was highly acclaimed its overwhelmingly beautiful visual and a profound theme behind. Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko is his fifth time directing a full-length theatrical release.

Akari Yanagawa JAPAN

Akari Yanagawa is an animation producer. She started her professional career at Toei Animation Co., Ltd. Graduated from Keio University's Faculty of Economics, and joined Toei Animation in 2013. After gaining experience in the licensing business, including character copyright management and copyright sales, she moved to the Planning Department in 2016 and produced her first film "Oshiri Tantei". She has produced "Star Twinkle Pretty Cure" and "The Supernatural Sweetshop (Fushigi Dagashiya Zenitendo)" among others.

Yasushi Yamashita JAPAN

Born in 1964. Graduated from Nihon University College of Art in 1987 with a degree in film studies, and worked for Laserdisc Inc. (later Pioneer LDC) where he was in charge of production and promotion of laserdisc and video software for films and animation. After leaving the company in 1992 and returning from a 10-month round-the-world trip with his wife, he worked as a freelance writer, writing on music, film and digital media. In 2005, he joined the digital broadcasting division of IMAGICA Inc. (later IMAGICATV, now WOWOW Plus), producing DVDs, Blu-rays and broadcast programs, mainly on European films. Also involved in the digital restoration, theatrical release, distribution and package production and release of films by Yury Norshteyn, Kihachiro Kawamoto, Tadanari Okamoto and others.