Nagisa Ōshima

Nagisa Oshima (b. 1932, Kyoto) comes from a family of samurai. The most famous and most controversial of the young directors, Oshima sparked off the New Wave in Japan with his debut A Street of Love and Hope in 1959. He had a penchant for literature and poetry in his adolescence and in college became a leading activist in the leftist movement. A direct political dimension, often on the border with documentary, and the influence of the French New Wave, particularly Godard, are evident in the majority of his films, which he got the opportunity to make after working for six years as an assistant in the Shochiku company. His work is replete with fierce criticism of his society that secluded him even after his departure from Shochiku when he began working independently. The apex of his work may be considered In the The Realm of the Senses (Ai no korida, 1976), a scandalous tale of sexual obsession based on a true story.

MFF Karlovy Vary