Filmmaker

MAMORU HOSODA

Born September 19, 1967 in Toyama prefecture. Director of animation films. In 1991, he joined Toei Doga (now Toei Animation). He was an animator there before becoming a director. In 2003, he directed "SUPERFLAT MONOGRAM," a video for Louis Vuitton's spring/summer collection. He turned freelance thereafter, and in 2006, he released feature animation The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which, despite its small-scale release, turned out to be a long-running box office hit supported by young viewers. It was also the first winner of the newly established Japan Academy Prize Best Animation as well as numerous other awards. In 2009, he released Summer Wars based on a story he wrote himself, and it also became a smash hit grossing 1.65 billion yen in box office sales and drawing an audience of 1.26 million. Like his previous film, it swept the animation awards in Japan, and it moreover received a formal invitation to the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival and gave Hosoda a nomination for the 2011 Annie Award Best Director, thrusting him to the top echelon of Japanese animation directors. In 2011, he and producer Yuichiro Saito co-established animation studio Studio Chizu. Wolf Children, which he directed and whose screenplay and story he wrote, became a mega hit that drew an audience of 3.44 million and grossed 4.22 billion yen in box office sales.

Curator, Tokyo National Museum; Head of Planning,
National Center for the Promotion of Cultural Properties

MASATO MATSUSHIMA

Born in 1966 in Osaka City. Graduated in Master's Course at Kanazawa College of Art in 1992. Completed doctoral program without a doctoral degree, Graduate School, Tokyo University of the Arts in 1997. Assumed his current position in 1998. Concurrently serves as Head of Planning, National Center for the Promotion of Cultural Properties, National Institutes for Cultural Heritage since July 2018. Some of the main exhibitions he was in charge of include HASEGAWA TOHAKU: 400th Memorial Retrospective (2010), Kuroda Seiki, Master of Modern Japanese Painting: The 150th Anniversary of his Birth (2016), and Marcel Duchamp and Japanese Art (2018). Also engaged in a comprehensive range of activities apart from the research and study of cultural assets. For example, by extending assistance to production of Mamoru Hosoda films such as The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006) and Bakemono no Ko/The Boy and the Beast (2015).