Hiroshi Teshigahara

Biography

Hiroshi Teshigahara (January 28, 1927 – April 14, 2001) was an avant-garde Japanese filmmaker. He was born in Tokyo, son of Sofu Teshigahara, founder and grand master of the Sogetsu School of ikebana. He graduated in 1950 from the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and began working in documentary film. He directed his first feature film, Pitfall (1962), in collaboration with author Kōbō Abe and musician Tōru Takemitsu. The film won the NHK New Director's award, and throughout the 1960s, he continued to collaborate on films with Abe and Takemitsu while simultaneously pursuing his interest in ikebana and sculpture on a professional level. In 1965, the Teshigahara/Abe film Woman in the Dunes (1964) was nominated for an Academy Award and won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1972, he worked with Japanese researcher and translator John Nathan to make the movie Summer Soldiers, a film set during the Vietnam War about American deserters living on the fringe of Japanese society. From the mid-1970s onwards, he worked less frequently on feature films as he concentrated more on documentaries, exhibitions and the Sogetsu School and became grand master of …

Directed

1. Woman in the Dunes (1964) — Director
2. The Face of Another (1966) — Director
3. Pitfall (1962) — Director
4. Rikyu (1989) — Director
5. Antonio Gaudí (1984) — Director
6. Ako (1964) — Director
7. The Man Without a Map (1968) — Director
8. Hokusai (1953) — Director
9. Tokyo 1958 (1958) — Director
10. Ikebana (1957) — Director
11. Basara: The Princess Goh (1992) — Director
12. Jose Torres (1959) — Director
13. Summer Soldiers (1972) — Director
14. Zatoichi Monogatari (1974) — Director
15. Sculptures by Sofu - Vita (1962) — Director
16. Jose Torres II (1965) — Director
17. Explosion Course (1967) — Director
18. That Tender Age (1964) — Director
19. 12 Photographers (1955) — Director
20. 240 Hours in One Day (1970) — Director
21. Moving Sculpture: Jean Tinguely (1981) — Director
22. Gaudi, Catalunya (1959) — Director
23. Basara no Hana (Flowers of Extravagance) (1985) — Director
24. Drumu To Shonen (1959) — Director

Also appeared in

1. Dream Window: Reflections on the Japanese Garden (1992)
2. Yurakucho 0 Street (1958) — Ryoji (Poet)