Shigeki Koga
[Editor, The Nikkei]

Koga was born in 1961 in Fukuoka. After graduating the Department of Politics, School of Political Science and Economics at Waseda University, he joined the Nikkei in 1985 and worked in the Cultural News Department and later in the Distribution and Economics Department. He served as Otsu Chief Correspondent, Deputy Director of the Cultural Department, and Kyoto Chief Correspondent. From 2010, he has written about culture, especially cinema, as an editor. He also teaches part time at the Department of Cinema, Nihon University College of Art. His publications include 1 Byo 24 Koma no Bi: Kurosawa Akira, Ozu Yasujiro, Mizoguchi Kenji (Nihon Keizai Shimbun Shuppansha, 2010) and Jidaigeki ga Zenei datta: Makino Shozo, Kinugasa Teinosuke, Ito Daisuke, Itami Mansaku, Yamanaka Sadao (Tankosha, 2022).

Kentaro Kishi
[Actor, Film Director]

Kishi studied under playwright Akio Miyazawa and began making films in 2003 while working as an actor. In 2020, his film “Hammock” won the Hosen Short Film Award at the Osaka Asian Film Festival. In recent years, he has also worked as a cinematographer and scriptwriter for films and dramas. His major works include “Along the Sea” (2020) (cinematography), “Winny” (2023) (screenplay/cinematography), “Life of Mariko in Kabuchiko” (2023) (cinematography), “Inochi no Michikake” (2023) (director/cinematography), and “Where Love Goes” (2024) (cinematography).

Shigeji Maeda
[Film Producer]

Maeda was born in Kyoto and graduated the Faculty of Art, Kyoto Seika University in 1986. He studied filmmaking in Toei Studios Kyoto, Shochiku Kyoto Studio, Eizo Kyoto, and Saga Eiga. He is the CEO of Rakufilm LLC which he established in 1998. He also is the Committee Director of Fukushima Kodomo no Mirai Film Festival, Principal of Fukushima Eiga-Juku, founder and Representative Director of Nonprofit Corporation Codomo Film. Representative works of his include 13 Assassins (2010), Harakiri: Death of a Samurai (2011), Shield of Straw (2013), Blade of the Immortal (2017), First Love (2019), Miwotsukushi Ryoricho (2020), The Great Yokai War: Guardians (2021), and Lumberjack the Monster (2023).　　　　　　　　

Mai Sakai
[Film Director]

Sakai was born in 1991 in Nagano. Her 2016 work Be A Light To The World won six film festival awards including a grand prix and was released in theaters as a standalone movie. A mere year after this success, she made her debut as a commercial film director with Opening Night (2017). Major works of hers in recent years include films You Made My Dawn (2023) and My Beautiful Man: Eternal (2023) as well as the TV series Tomorrow, I’ll Be Someone’s Girlfriend and My Beautiful Man. She has also directed a number of music videos including Naniwa Danshi’s “Ubu Love”, Yuuri’s “Leo”, and Nissy’s “I Need You”.

Tomohiro Maekawa
[Playwright, Director]<

Maekawa was born in 1974 in Niigata. His works capture relationships between the invisible and humans as well as the otherworld appearing within intimate distance from daily life in a paranormal yet normal setting. He is known for his seamless style of directing where space and time are edited simultaneously. Major works of his include Ten no Teki (2022), Kansu Domino (2022), A la marge: Show in Paris (2022),Hitodama wo Todokeni (2023), and Muda na Teikou (2023).

Yu Irie
[Film Director]

Irie was born in 1979 in Kanagawa. Major works of his include the 8000 Miles series, Memoirs of a Murderer (2017), Vigilante (2017), and Nemesis: The Movie (2023). His latest film About Anne is set to be released on 7th June 2024. There also is an upcoming Toei jidaigeki film scheduled for release in 2025.

Junichi Yasuda
[Film Director]

Born in 1967 in Kyoto, Yasuda started a video production business while in Osaka University of Economics. His business answers to various needs such as documenting kindergarten plays and weddings, creating corporate videos, recording and/or livestreaming events with multiple cameras, and filmmaking, all under the motto of “going above and beyond for our clients while staying within budget”. His theatrical releases include Kenju to Medamayaki (2014) and Gohan (2017). His latest film Samurai Time Tripper is scheduled for release in 2024.

Takashi Ono
[Film Director]

Ono was born in 1996. After graduating from the Department of Cinema of the Nihon University College of Art, he directed several independent films. His 2023 work Yakyu Doahou Miboujin became a smash hit in cities including Tokyo and Osaka. The film Matsushima Tomoko Same Yugi (Dir. Minoru Kawasaki), which he participated in as a screenwriter, is currently in production.

Carmen Accaputo
[Cineteca di Bologna]

Carmen Accaputo is in charge of the exploitation of the audiovisual heritage and the dissemination of the Film Collections at Cineteca di Bologna (Italy). A Cinematheque employee since 2001, she handles conservation and cataloguing of moving images at the Cinema Department. She graduated from the History of Cinema Department at the University of Bologna (Italy) and she studied History of the Silent Cinema and Film Preservation and Restoration at the Université Paris8-Vincennes-Saint Denis (France).

Junpei Matsumoto
[Film Director]

Matsumoto was born in 1984 in Nagasaki. After graduating from the Department of Architecture, Faculty of Engineering at the University of Tokyo, he went on to complete his studies in the Department of Architecture, Graduate School of Engineering at the same university. He is also a member of the 12th class of Yoshimoto New Star Creation (NSC). Born in a Catholic family, he was strongly influenced by Christianity from a young age. After setting up an NPO with friends, he embarked onto filmmaking. In 2012, he released his theatrical debut Mada, Ningen. In 2014, he made his first commercial film Saigo no Inochi based on the novel by Akutagawa Prize winner Nakamura Fuminori. The film was nominated for the grand prix and won Best Screenplay at the Chelsea Film Festival held in New York. In 2017, his film Perfect Revolution, based on a true love story between a physically disabled man and a woman with a personality disorder, was released and officially screened at the 25th Raindance Film Festival. In 2022, A Mother’s Touch was released. Then in 2023, Matsumoto released Shajiku, a film portraying a love triangle in Kabukicho involving a gay man, a female university student, and a host. The film was invited to a number of film festivals including the 47th São Paulo International Film Festival.

Monica Dugo
[Film Director]

Hailing from Sicily, Dugo is a renowned figure in the Italian film industry. She made her cinematic debut in 2005 with I Love You in Every Language of the World directed by Leonardo Pieraccioni. In 2016, she wrote and directed the short film Domani Smetto alongside Marcello Di Noto. In 2022, she premiered Come la tartarughe in the Venice Film Festival (Biennale College Cinema).

Chiara Troisi
[Film Director]

Troisi is an illustrator born in 1994 in Asti, Italy, and based in Rome. She has been in the industry from 2013, gaining experience with short films, documentaries, commercials, and feature films. She works on various forms of visual art such as short films, animation, live-action films, illustration, artist books, and virtual reality. In 2020, she directed her first short film The Strength. In 2022, her VR short animation film MONO was selected for the Venice Immersive of the 79th Venice International Film Festival. MONO also won Best Italian VR in a prestigious filmmaker festival which took place in Milan.

Yohei Shikano
[Film Director]

Shikano was born in 1992 in Yokohama. After completing his studies at the Graduate School of Film and New Media at Tokyo University of the Arts, he joined Toei Co. as an assistant director. As a member of the directing department, he worked on a number of films and TV series, such as Blood of the Lone Wolf (2018) by Kazuya Shiraishi, in the Tokyo and Kyoto studios. He currently is a freelance assistant director and filmmaker. His 2022 film Tsukumo-san won several awards including the Competition Grand Prix at the 3rd SAITAMA Nantoka Film Festival and JAPAN Silver at DigiCon6 JAPAN 2022. is 2023 work Pokkari Garando won the Grand Prix in the 25th Indies Movie Competition of Nagaoka Film Festival.

Tatsuya Nagamine
[Toei Animation]　　

Born in 1971, Tatsuya Nagamine is an animation director of Toei Animation. He has worked on the TV anime series ONE PIECE as the series director. He is also credited as director/series director in the anime film One Piece Film: Z(2012) and TV series Dragon Ball Super.

Akimasa Yamashita
[Vice Governor of Kyoto Prefecture]

Mr. Yamashita was born in Kyoto City, 1952. He entered the Kyoto Prefectural Government in 1975, and served in several positions including Deputy Director General and Director General of the Department of Commerce Industry, Director General of the Department of Commerce, Labor and Tourism, and Director General for Special Planning. He has served as Vice-Governor of Kyoto Prefecture since 2013. Currently, he is working on the revision of the Kyoto Prefectural Comprehensive Plan as well as the construction of the “Leading Zone for Industrial Creation”(tentative name) to help expand local industries. Within these projects, he has been working on the expansion of the creation zones in the Uzumasa area by setting up the Uzumasa Media Park Project, with the aim of promoting projects that incorporate cutting-edge technologies, such as Web 3.0 and Metaverse, as well as developing a human resources nurturing system that provides a place for some content industry related individuals and students to learn from each other beyond their major fields of work.

Pietro Marcello
[Film Director]

Marcello was born in Caserta, Italy in 1976. After studying painting in the Naples Academy of Fine Arts, he started working on documentary films from 2002. His 2009 directorial decut La bocca del lupo won Best Feature Film and the Prize of the City of Torino and the Torino Film Festival as well as the Caligari Film Award and the Teddy Awardin the Berlin International Film Festival. His 2019 feature Martin Eden was selected to compete at the 76th Venice International Film Festival.

Sławomir Ciok
[Program Director, NNW International Film Festival]

Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1976. He lives in Warsaw, Poland, but He has also experienced living in Seattle, Washington D.C., London, Berlin, and Reykjavik. He speaks Polish, English, basic German, and Russian. He works as a Film Producer, sometimes as a Director and Writer, and also as a Film Business and Marketing Strategist, Creative Consultant, or Sales Agent from time to time. He has been in the film business since 2005, covering film marketing, film development, film financing – private and public, national and international, NGOs, film production, post-production, film promotion, distribution, and global sales. Earlier, in the TV business since 2000, and in Radio since 1994. Based on the Education He gathered from Lodz Film School – Lodz, Poland – film production and Warsaw University – Warsaw, Poland – journalism, with integrated media marketing & PR (Canadian Studies). He specializes in period and true event-based feature films, including feature-length documentaries. In the past, He has participated in international co-productions with Germany, Finland, Great Britain, and the USA, including filming in over 20 countries. Interested in the entire creation process, from the script and production development to promotion and international distribution. Usually, He is accredited at leading international festivals and film market events, like Cannes, Los Angeles, Berlin, Locarno, etc… Lately, He has become an international festival competition programmer and Head of the Market at the NNW International Film Festival & Market in Gdynia, Poland, and He started working on networking the historic film festivals and markets in the world.

Yukiko Sode
[Film Director]

Sode was born in 1983 in Nagano. She started directing independent films while in university and later made her commercial film debut with Good Stripes (2015). In 2021, she released Aristocrats based on Mariko Yamauchi’s novel of the same title. In 2022, she worked on the Disney+ drama series Because We Forget Everything based on Moegara’s essay as director and screenwriter. She is also credited as a screenwriter for various works including the Netflix drama series He’s Expecting (2022) and the BS-TBS show Tengu no Daidokoro (2023).

Kikuro Miyashita
[Professor, Graduate School of Humanities, Kobe University; Art historian]

Miyashita was born in 1963 in Nagoya. After graduating from the Department of Art History, Faculty of Letters, at the University of Tokyo, he went on to complete his studies in the Graduate School of said university. He has taught in Kobe University since 2013. His book Caravaggio: Seisei to Vijon (University of Nagoya Press) won several awards including the Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities. Other publications of his include Baroque Bijutsu no Seiritsu, Itaria Baroque: Bijutsu to Kenchiku (Yamakawa Shuppansha), Taberu Seiyo Bijutsu-shi, Warhol no Geijutsu, Geijutsu no Chikara, Meiga no Umareru Toki (Kobunsha Shinsho), Caravaggio e no Tabi (Kadokawa Sensho), Irezumi to Nudo no Bijutsushi (NHK Books), Mochifu de Yomu Bijutsushi, Shigusa de Yomu Bijutsushi (Chikuma Bunko), Venezia (Iwanami Shinsho), Yami no Bijutsushi, Sei to Zoku: Bundan to Kakyo no Bijutsushi (Iwanami Shoten).