Michihito Fujii

is a Japanese filmmaker. He also has his own production company, Babel Label.

History Childhood Fujii was born in Shibuya-ku, Tokyo. His older sister is Rumi Yoshida, a picture book author. His father was a banker and his mother a travel agent. Soon after he was born, they moved to New York City due to his father's job transfer and he lived in Manhattan until he was 4 years old. and an overseas Chinese who came to Japan. Later, he moved to Nakano, Tokyo, At the time, his favorite films included Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express, and Shunji Iwai's Swallowtail Butterfly. He later said that this feeling of "not understanding" was important to him, even though at the time he still did not understand much after watching many film works. He originally thought of becoming a screenwriter.

Early career After he enrolled at Nihon University, According to Fujii, however, his scriptwriting did not improve much, and he eventually decided to pursue directing. He often ran short of money and relied on his seniors who worked in the video industry to earn money by getting making-of jobs from commercial production companies and working as an offline editor. He did not find a job after college and thought he could make it as a freelancer in the video industry, but he had no work at all during his first year. According to Fujii, television advertisement and music videos are approached differently than films, and he believed that there were many directors who were better than he was, so he did them solely to earn money for his films. According to Fujii, he was unable to give precise instructions to his staff, whose average age was in the 50s. Later in 2018 he returned to commercial films with We Are. There he met Toyoharu Kitamura (, ), who introduced him to Taiwanese film workers. Producer Roger Huang , happened to be there at the time. Fujii did not get the job because he was still unknown at the time, but Roger later watched The Journalist and offered Fujii a chance to make 18×2 Beyond Youthful Days. At first, Fujii turned it down twice because he was not interested in politics or social issues, but Kawamura did not give up after that and eventually asked him three times to direct the film, which he accepted. The movie The Journalist was released in 2019 to great response and won the 43rd Japan Academy Film Prize for Picture of the Year, After this film, Fujii and Kawamura hit it off and worked together on A Family and The Village until Kawamura's death in 2022.

In 2022, The Last 10 Years was released. In this film, Fujii spent a year filming the four seasons, expressing the feeling of the months and days as the seasons change. The film was a smash hit, grossing over $26 million in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, and Vietnam combined.

In 2024, 18×2 Beyond Youthful Days was released. The film was a co-production between Taiwan and Japan. He said his dream of someday connecting with cinema across cultures and languages had come true.

Filmmaking and kendo Fujii was so devoted to kendo that he practiced it 360 days out of 365 days a year from his childhood until he graduated from high school. He said that the teachings of kendo naturally made him work with respect for others, and his rigorous training gave him patience, so he did not often felt hard to work as a film director.

Relationships He has been friends with actor Ryusei Yokohama since the 2016 release of Unrequited Love. At the time, neither Fujii nor Yokohama were yet successful. Since then, Yokohama appeared in Fujii's film We Are, the music video for amazarashi's , and DIVOC-12, a Netflix TV series The Journalist, which was shot at the COVID-19 pandemic. Fujii also said that at times, "I feel like Ryusei is a part of my body," and that he will work with him from the script development because he understands that he will perform as expected.

Awards and nominations

Filmography Feature films

Television series

Short films

Music videos "Uruubito" by Radwimps "Celebration" by Ukaskazy "To the Future" by Naoto Inti Raymi "The World" by Haruka to Miyuki "How to start" by HUSH "On that night when I couldn't be the future" "Swipe" by amazarashi "Now and Then We" by Kaya Kiyohara "Worst You Just Dumped Me" by Misako Uno "Familia" by millennium parade "Hitsu Zetsu" by Radwimps

Commercials Golden Moment (2014 American Express) Modern Samurai Isao Machii Cuts Many Objects with "Iaido" Sword Strokes (2015 SoftBank Group) Hoiku hiroba "Sunrise" (2016 Neo-career) For Busy Dads (2016 Wacoal) Pokémon Sun and Moon - Train on. (2016 Nintendo) Love begins with an after-school chime (2018 Ymobile) Shiseido Recipest (2019 Shiseido) Pure Potato Potato Chips (2024 Koikeya)