Mark Schilling Japan CorrespondentThe Japanese film industry has produced dozens of directors that, over the decades, have been hailed by Japanese critics as masters but never became well-known abroad.
Kurosawa Akira and Ozu Yasujiro once got regularly named checked by foreign filmmakers visiting Japan; the locally renowned Naruse Mikio and Kinoshita Keisuke, far less often.A similar situation has long prevailed with the so-called “4K” directors – Kore-eda Hirokazu, Kawase Naomi, Kurosawa Kiyoshi and Kitano Takeshi – who have collectively garnered the lion’s share of major festival invitations and prizes for nearly two decades, leaving a younger generation of Japanese filmmakers in relative obscurity internationally.
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