Katsuhito Ishii

Master of quirky, energetic visuals, Katsuhito Ishii was born in 1966 in Niigata, Japan. He has been actively directing films since 1995 across various genres, but he is most acclaimed for his work in animation and comedy, with notorious films including "Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl" (1998) and the animated feature "The Taste of Tea" (2004), which earned him the Best Director award at the Mainichi Film Awards. Ishii's authorial style is characterized by his ability to blend the surreal with the mundane, creating distinctive, visually stunning worlds that are punctuated by his unique sense of humor and idiosyncratic characters.

From the heart, Ishii is a master storyteller who never fails to infuse his work with a sense of humanity, even in his wildest visual flights of fancy.