Kimi Takesue
Introduction (2-3 lines)
Kimi Takesue is an award winning filmmaker who explores the complex dynamics of cross-cultural encounters. She is the recipient of Guggenheim and Rockefeller Fellowships, as well as the prestigious 2018 “Breakthrough Award” and fellowship from Chicken and Egg Pictures. Her films have been featured at over 250 film festivals and museums internationally including Sundance, New Directors/New Films, Locarno, Los Angeles, SXSW, Rotterdam, BAFICI-Buenos Aires, and the Museum of Modern Art-NYC.
Kimi Takesue is Brooklyn based filmmaker working in documentary, experimental and narrative genres. Her feature documentary 95 and 6 To Go, a creative portrait of her Japanese-American grandfather in Hawai’i, was nominated for the prestigious 2017 European Doc Alliance Award and screened at over twenty-five international film festivals, including CPH:DOX, DOC NYC, and Dok Leipzig. The film won the Special Jury Prize for Best Documentary at Indie Memphis and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific International Film Festival.
Takesue’s critically acclaimed Ugandan feature-length documentary Where Are You Taking Me? was commissioned by the International Film Festival Rotterdam and premiered at the festival, followed by screenings at the MoMA, NYC, the Los Angeles Film Festival, and festivals in Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Uganda, Poland, Portugal and India, among others. Where Are You Taking Me? was a Critics’ Pick by Time Out-New York and LA Weekly and was described by the New York Times as, “Fascinating…an unusual, visually rich visit to the nation.”
Commissioned by ITVS, as part of the FutureStates Series, Takesue’s short fiction film, That Which Once Was explores the plight of environmental refugees. The film premiered at the SXSW Film Festival and was awarded the ITVS FutureStates Audience Award and Best Short at the Barcelona International Environmental Film Festival.
Takesue is a ten-time artist fellow at Yaddo, Bogliasco, Wexner Center for the Arts, Marblehouse, and the MacDowell Colony. Her films have screened widely internationally and aired on PBS, IFC, Comcast, and the Sundance Channel, receiving positive reviews from The New York Times, Variety, Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Village Voice, Bomb Magazine, Christian Science Monitor and The Nation, among others. She is Professor in the Dept. of Arts, Culture, and Media at Rutgers University-Newark.
