Yoshishige Yoshida

, also known as Kijū Yoshida, was a Japanese film director and screenwriter.

Life and career Graduating from the University of Tokyo, where he studied French literature, Yoshida entered the Shōchiku studio in 1955 and worked as an assistant to Keisuke Kinoshita, before debuting as a director in 1960 with Rokudenashi. He was a central member of what came to be called the "Shōchiku Nouvelle Vague" along with Nagisa Oshima and Masahiro Shinoda, and his works have been studied under the larger rubric of the Japanese New Wave, a linkage which Yoshida himself disliked. Two years later, his film Wuthering Heights would compete for the Golden Palm at the 1988 Festival. In 2002, Women in the Mirror followed after another hiatus of 14 years. In addition to his theatrical films, Yoshida directed a series of documentaries for Japanese TV.

Yoshida named European cinema as a great influence on his work, most notably the directors Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, and pre-war French films like the works of Jean Renoir.

Selected filmography Film

Good-for-Nothing (1960) Blood Is Dry (1960) Bitter End of a Sweet Night (1961) Akitsu Springs (1962) 18 Who Cause a Storm (1963) Escape from Japan (1964) A Story Written with Water (1965) Woman of the Lake (1966) The Affair (1967) Flame and Women Impasse (1967) Affair in the Snow (1968) Farewell to the Summer Light (1968) Eros + Massacre (1969) Heroic Purgatory (1970) Confessions Among Actresses (1971) Coup d'État (1973) A Promise (1986) Wuthering Heights (1988) Lumière and Company (segment, 1995) Women in the Mirror (2002) Welcome to São Paulo (segment, 2004)

Television

Beauty of Beauty Bi no bi (1974–1977)

The Cinema of Ozu According to Kiju Yoshida (1993)

Selected bibliography