The Tokyo Film Festival presents Martin Scorsese and Kiyoshi Kurosawa with samurai awards

Martin Scorsese and Kiyoshi Kurosawa

The upcoming 29th Tokyo International Film Festival "Samurai Award" (SAMURAI) will be awarded to American director Martin Scorsese and Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the film industry.

The Samurai Awards, which recognize the exploits of filmmakers who continue to present innovative films that transcend the ages to the world, are in their third year. In 2014 and 2015, it was awarded to Takeshi Kitano and Tim Burton, as well as Yoji Yamada and Woo Woo Sen respectively.

Martin Scorsese won the Palme d'Or at the 29th Cannes International Film Festival for directing Taxi Driver (1976), starring Robert De Niro. He was nominated for 8 Oscars for "The Aviator" (2005) and "The Wolf of Wall Street" (2014), and won the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director in 2006 through "Infernal Affairs". His latest novel, Silence, which was scheduled to be filmed for 20 years and is based on the novel of the same name by Japanese writer Shusaku Endo, tells a warm and sad story, and the film will be released next year.

Japanese suspense master Kiyoshi Kurosawa gained popularity with "Girl's Journey" (1985) and "Hell Security" (1991), and in 1992, the original screenplay film "The Extraordinary Tree" won a scholarship from the Sundance Film Festival Association in the United States to study in the United States. So far, his director's work has been shortlisted for the Cannes Film Festival four times, and in 2008, "Tokyo Sonata" won a kind of attention unit jury award, and in 2015, "Shore Journey" won a kind of attention unit director award. His new film", The Woman on the Negatives, is The First Feature Film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa to feature foreign actors and french throughout, and will be released on October 15.

The ceremony will be held in conjunction with the closing ceremony of the festival, where director Kiyoshi Kurosawa will reflect on his experience and give a special speech in front of the films he has directed.

The 29th Tokyo International Film Festival will be held from October 25 to November 3 at the main venue of Roppongi, Tokyo.