Mohammad Rasoulof and O Mipo to receive the Kurosawa Akira award at the Tokyo festival

Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof and Japanese director O Mipo have been selected to receive the Kurosawa Akira award at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF), as Variety reports. The decision was made by a committee comprising directors Yoji Yamada and Lee Sang-il, cinematographer Akiko Ashizawa and TIFF programming director Shozo Ichiyama.

Rasoulof is one of world cinema’s boldest voices: he won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2020 with “There Is No Evil”, while “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” took the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 2024 and was chosen as Germany’s entry for the Oscar for best international film. The director was jailed in Iran in 2010 and again in 2022 over his films criticizing the regime, and fled the country in secret on the eve of the 2024 Cannes festival. Many of his films were shot clandestinely and smuggled out of Iran for screening at world festivals. “Receiving the Kurosawa award is a great honor for me. His films are profound explorations of the human condition and of the moral choices we make in moments of crisis,” Rasoulof said.

O Mipo began her career as a script supervisor at the production company of master Nobuhiko Obayashi before making her directing debut in 2006 with “The Sakais’ Happiness”. “The Light Shines Only There” (2014) won her the best director prize at the Montreal World Film Festival and was selected as Japan’s Oscar submission, while “Being Good” was named best Asian film at the Moscow festival. After a nine-year pause during which she became a mother of two, she returned with “Living in Two Worlds” (2024), which competed at Shanghai; her latest film, “How Dare You?” (2025), screened in competition at Zlin.

As part of the tribute, the festival will also screen a selection of Akira Kurosawa’s favorite films, alongside two of his own works: Charlie Chaplin’s “The Circus”, the 4K restorations of Kurosawa’s “Sanshiro Sugata” and “Ikiru”, and Abbas Kiarostami’s “Where Is the Friend’s House?”. The 39th TIFF runs in Tokyo from October 26 to November 4, 2026.