About Atsushi
Born in Japan and raised partly in the U.S., Atsushi is a graduate of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies. Nicknamed "Japan's answer to Woody Allen", Atsushi constantly gets mistaken for someone else like the Zelig-character - a waiter, a driver, a deliveryman - even while pursuing his career in Europe, Japan and U.S. as a filmmaker, screenwriter, video artist and actor/comedian.
Atsushi’s art videos and collaborative installations (with C.M. Judge and with Anna Davis) have been screened and awarded at festivals and museums world-wide, including the Reina Sofia Museum Madrid, Museum of Modern Art New York and the Venice Bienniale Xenografia. He has received screenwrting grants in Germany and the Netherlands and has appeared weekly as a comedian on Dutch national TV.
Eternally Yours, Atsushi’s latest short film, was selected for the prestigious New Directors/New Films Festival 2007 in New York at the MoMA & the Lincoln Center and won awards at festivals in Bangkok, Boston and LA.
Cast me if you can, Atsushi’s feature film debut, premiered at the 13th Shanghai International Film Festival Asian New Talent Competition. It has been released theatrically nation-wide in 16 cities in Japan and San Francisco, released also on Amazon and i-Tunes in North America in 2012 and screened on Russian, Chinese and Australian airlines, broadcast on 4 channels on Japanese television and published as a novel.
Trick or Treat: I LOVE America!, Atsushi's collaborative satire with MEGWIN TV, which he wrote and directed for Halloween in 2014, had more than 77,000 viewers on its launching weeks and was selected for the official YouTube Japan channel. It was awarded Best Creative Idea and Best Cinematography at the Rome Web Awards in 2015.
Atsushi has also taught screenwriting and acting/directing workshops at YouTube Space Tokyo and has been invited as a guest speaker in Seoul, Korea, for the K Web Fest 2015.