Shiota Akihiko – attended Rikkyō University, where he attended a film club with other diligent students, such as Makoto Shinozaki and Aoyama Shinji, and began shooting 8mm films. His independent film productions were recognized at The Pia Film Festival, which let him to write film criticism while working as an assistant for Kurosawa Kiyoshi and studying screenwriting under Yamatoya Atsushi. His first two major youth films: Moonlight Whispers and Don’t Look Back, were both released in 1999 and earned him the Directors Guild of Japan New Directors Award. Later, Harmful Insect (2002) was screened at the Venice Film Festival and was awarded two more awards at the Three Continents Festival. His first major commercial film, Yomigaeri, was the fourth biggest grossing Japanese film of 2003. Canary (2005), inspired by the killings of Aum Shinrikyo in 1995, won the top prize at the Raindance Film Festival. He is recently known for the very amusing tribute to the Japanese pink genre cinema Wet Woman in the Wind (2016) and The Farewell Song (2019), starring Komatsu Nana, Kadowaki Mugi and Narita Ryō
