Born on December 12, 1903, in Tokyo. Ozu harbored aspirations of becoming a film director ever since he saw Thomas H. Ince's Civilization (1916), which had a profound effect on him as a schoolboy. In 1923, he joined Shochiku Kamata as a camera assistant, making his directorial debut in 1927 with Sword of Penitence (Zange no yaiba). He was propelled to the forefront of the industry when three films he made between 1932 and 1934 – I Was Born, But... (Umarete wa mita keredo, 1932), Passing Fancy (Dekigokoro, 1933), and A Story of Floating Weeds (Ukigusa monogatari, 1934) – took the coveted first spot in prestigious film magazine Kinema Junpo's end-of-year list three years in a row. In the years that followed, he continued to commit to film controlled, meticulous depictions of everyday family existence and life's sorrows. In the decades since he passed away on his sixtieth birthday in 1963, his reputation and influence have anything but waned. In 2012, Tokyo Story (Tokyo monogatari, 1953) was voted first place by directors and third by critics in British film magazine Sight and Sound's once-a-decade Greatest Films of All Time Poll – just one sign among many that his legacy as a cineaste for the ages seems destined only to grow.

(Written by FUJIWARA Masao / Reference: National Film Archive of Japan screening program / Translated by Adam Sutherland)