Nobuhiko Obayashi

Early life

Obayashi was born on 9 January 1938 in the city of Onomichi, Japan. After his father, a doctor,

Career 1955–1977: Early career and House In 1955 Obayashi, at the urging of his father, began procedures to enter medical school and become a physician. However, he abandoned the prospect of a career in medicine in favor of following his artistic interests at Seijo University. In 1956 he was accepted to the university's liberal arts department, where he began to work with 8 and 16 mm film. Toward the end of his stay at the university Obayashi began working on a series of short experimental films. Together—with Takahiko Iimura, Yoichi Takabayashi, and Donald Richie—Nobuhiko Obayashi established the Japanese experimental-film group Film Independent, or "Japan Film Andepandan," who were awarded at the 1964 . Along with works by other filmmakers such as Shuji Terayama and Donald Richie, Obayashi's films would develop the tone of Japanese experimental cinema through the 1960s. In these early experimental films Obayashi employed a number of avant-garde techniques that he would carry into his later mainstream work. Though these films tended to be of a personal nature, they received public viewership due to distribution by the Art Theatre Guild.

Following his departure from university, Obayashi continued to work on his experimental films. Dentsu, a TV commercial project in Japan looking for new talent, asked members of Film Independents if they would like to direct commercials; Obayashi was the only one from the group to accept the offer, and thus began earning a living as a director in the new field of television advertisements. Obayashi's TV commercials had a visual appeal similar to that of his experimental works. In the 1970s he began a series of Japanese ads featuring well-known western stars such as Kirk Douglas, Charles Bronson and Catherine Deneuve. During the course of his career, Obayashi directed around 3,000 television commercials. He made his feature film directorial debut with the comedy horror film House, released in 1977. The film employed a mixture of trick photography and avant-garde techniques to achieve its distinctive, surreal visuals, and has gone on to be considered a cult classic. It earned Obayashi the Blue Ribbon Award for Best New Director.

1980s–2010s: Further mainstream success Through the 1980s and onwards Obayashi continued to make feature films and broadened his mainstream appeal. He directed a number of coming-of-age films such as I Are You, You Am Me (1982), The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (1983), and Lonely Heart (1985)—which together form his "Onomichi trilogy", named after the town where he was born —as well as Chizuko's Younger Sister (1991).

His 1988 film The Discarnates was entered into the 16th Moscow International Film Festival. His 1998 film Sada, based on the true story of Sada Abe, was entered into the 48th Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize for "its unique combination of innovative style and human observation."

In 2016, Obayashi was diagnosed with stage-four terminal cancer Despite this, he started production on Hanagatami, a passion project of his which had been over 40 years in the making. The film was released in 2017 and was met with acclaim, winning prizes such as the Best Film Award at the 72nd Mainichi Film Awards. It is the third installment in a thematic trilogy of modern anti-war films by Obayashi, along with Casting Blossoms to the Sky (2012) and Seven Weeks (2014).

He shot and edited his final film, titled Labyrinth of Cinema, while receiving cancer treatment.

Death Obayashi died on 10 April 2020 at the age of 82, from lung cancer in Tokyo. His family held a funeral for him at a temple in Tokyo on 13 April.

Honors Medal with Purple Ribbon (2004) Order of the Rising Sun, 4th Class, Gold Rays with Rosette (2009) Person of Cultural Merit (2019)

Partial filmography + Year Film Director Writer Producer Editor Notes 1944 Popeye's Treasure Island Short film; 8 mm film 1945 The Stupid Teacher Short film; 8 mm 1966 Emotion Short film; 16 mm 1968 Confession Short film; 16 mm 1981 School in the Crosshairs 1983 The Girl Who Leapt Through Time 1983Lover Comeback To Me 1984 The Deserted City 1991 Chizuko's Younger Sister 1992 The Rocking Horsemen 1995 Goodbye for Tomorrow 1998 Sada I Want to Hear the Wind's Song 2012 Casting Blossoms to the Sky 2014 Seven Weeks 2017 Hanagatami 2019 Labyrinth of Cinema Final film