Cinematographer / DP

Akiko Ashizawa

芦澤明子

Tokyo, Japan

Japanese cinematographer, internationally known through her long collaboration with Kiyoshi Kurosawa and recognised as the leading figure among women cinematographers in Japanese film, she was told as a young woman that “girls can’t do it”. Set on film by Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou while at Aoyama Gakuin University; made independent films, worked as an assistant director in pink film, and from 1973 apprenticed to Hideo Ito, the cinematographer known for Wakamatsu Productions. Went independent as a cameraperson in 1983 and worked mainly in television commercials for a decade, she got her way back into features by writing a letter to a director, which led to Hideyuki Hirayama’s The Junior High School Teacher (1992) and her DP debut on his Play with the Good Kids (1994) (1994).