Rasoulof and O Mipo to receive Kurosawa Award at Tokyo festival

Iranian film-maker Mohammad Rasoulof and Japanese director O Mipo will receive the Kurosawa Akira Award at the 39th Tokyo International Film Festival, Variety reported on 28 September 2026.

The award is given to directors judged to have made a lasting contribution to world cinema. It is named for Akira Kurosawa.

The two recipients were chosen by directors Yamada Yoji and Lee Sang-il, cinematographer Ashizawa Akiko and TIFF programming director Ichiyama Shozo, according to the same report. The prize returned in 2022 with backing from games company Capcom after 14 years without being presented. Last year it went to Lee and Chloe Zhao.

Rasoulof secretly left Iran in 2024 after being sentenced to eight years in prison. He had continued to make films despite official bans on his work.

He won the Golden Bear, the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival, in 2020 for There Is No Evil. That film later played at the 33rd Tokyo International Film Festival.

His next feature, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes in 2024. It was entered by Germany as its submission for best international feature at the Oscars, the category for films made outside the United States, and received a nomination.

O made her feature debut in 2006 with The Sakais' Happiness. She has worked steadily in Japanese cinema and television since.

Her 2014 drama The Light Shines Only There brought her best director at the Montreal World Film Festival. The film was also selected as Japan's Oscar submission. Her 2015 film Being Good was named best Asian film at the Moscow International Film Festival, Variety reported.

More recently, her Living in Two Worlds competed at Shanghai in 2024. Her How Dare You? played in competition at Zlin in 2025.

For festivalgoers, this means two very different careers on one stage. One has unfolded under exile and international prizes. The other has grown film by film inside Japan.