Naotoshi Kitada

Directing • Osaka, Japan

Born in 1968, he studied film editing under renowned editor Akira Suzuki while immersing himself in experimental filmmaking at the Image Forum in Yotsuya. At the age of 18, an 8mm film he directed won the Excellence Award at the Japan Visual Festival, organized by Nippon Television. From the age of 25, he spent the next ten years producing the 35mm feature film Inu (Dog), working almost entirely on his own. Following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, he documented the many animals left behind in the evacuation zone. Since then, he has been actively engaged in raising awareness of and addressing animal welfare issues in Japan.