Kurosawa Award Winner O Mipo Is ‘Making Up for Lost Time’ After Career Break to Raise Her Sons

Director O Mipo has received the 2026 Kurosawa Akira Award alongside Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, recognising filmmakers with significant achievements and potential to shape cinema’s future. The award comes as O has returned to feature filmmaking after taking a break to raise her two sons, and she says she is now “making up for lost time”.

O began in film as a script supervisor in 1999 and won early recognition for her short film “Eye” and her first feature screenplay. Her films include “The Light Shines Only There”, Japan’s 2014 submission for the Academy Award for best foreign language film, and she returned to features with “Living in Two Worlds” in 2024 and “How Dare You?” in 2025. O says Japan now releases nearly 700 films a year, but she wants more of them to reach international audiences and hopes to work in Hollywood; she also relies on directing commercials and other work to make a living.