PANEL DISCUSSION "Through the Eyes of Refugees and Migrants"

Speakers

• Daihei Mochizuki (Chief of Mission, International Organization for Migration [IOM] Japan)

  

  As a related event to KYOTOGRAPHIE 2023 program, César Dezfuli’s "Passengers" we have invited Daihei Mochizuki, chair of IOM Japan, and Kosai Sekine, director of the short film "List: What They Took With Them: A List” to discuss refugees and migrants’s issues. They will intersect their ideas from the standpoints of those who works on issues of international human migration and those who expresses aspects of refugee and migrant issues through the medium of film. What perspectives is needed in Japan when considering refugees and migrants? This dialogue may provide some hints for viewing the exhibition "Passenger".

• Kosai Sekine (Filmmaker, Film Director)

  

  Kosai Sekine is known for marrying an unbiased, borderless worldview with verité-style images and grounded perceptions of Tokyo and Japan, sometimes experimental, sometimes social in approach. He resides in Tokyo and is currently involved in many projects, including feature films, short films, video art installations, advertising, and music videos.
  
  Sekine debuted in 2005 with the much-talked-about "Right Place", a darkly humorous yet compassionate slice-of-life short film about a man with OCD. The following year he won the Young Director Grand Prix award at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, along with 3 Gold awards. Furthermore, he was named the top young director by shots UK.
  
  In 2008, he earned his reputation by directing numerous short films, tvcs, and music videos nationally and internationally. In 2014, he won the Cannes Lions Titanium Grand Prix with "Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1984", which became the most award-winning advertising film in a single year in the world.
  In 2018, he directed his first feature film, "Love, At Least", based on the best-selling novel by Yukiko Motoya, about a girl with hypersomnia and her struggles in life. As a result, he won Silver at Shindo Kaneto Young Directors Award and Jury Award at Kinotayo Film Festival in France. In addition, he released his feature-length documentary film "Tower of the Sun" in the same year. It depicts Japan's long-term structural problem, which has been in dispute since the Osaka Expo.
  
  In recent years, he has been actively producing films related to activism art, including
  "IVAN IVAN," a short documentary about the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, "INVISIBLE," a film about graffiti allegedly drawn by Banksy in Tokyo and refugee problems at the Japanese immigration office, and "What They Took With Them: a List," a poetry reading film for refugees produced in collaboration with the United Nations UNHCR. He is also known as the initiator of the "VOICE PROJECT," which approached Japan's stagnant voter turnout.
  In 2020, he won the Excellence Award in the Art Division of the Japan Media Arts Festival or his installation art "Sea, See, She: the unseen", which he co-produced with sound artist evala and directed the film.
  
  Sekine is a co-founder of a production company called NION.