Makoto Satō (佐藤真 ''Satō Makoto'', September 12, 1957 - September 4, 2007) was a Japanese documentary

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

. Among his best-known films were ''Living On the River Agano'', which describes people around the

Agano River The is a river in the Hokuriku region of Honshu, Japan. It is also called the Aga River or the Ōkawa River in Fukushima. The source of the river is Mount Arakai on the border of Fukushima and Tochigi. It flows to the north and meets the Nip ...

where incidents of

Niigata Minamata disease is a neurological syndrome caused by severe mercury poisoning. Identical in symptoms to the original outbreak of Minamata disease in Kumamoto Prefecture, the second outbreak in Niigata Prefecture was confirmed with the same name in 1965. The dis ...

were discovered, and ''Self and Others''. His final film, ''Out of Place: Memories of Edward Said'' (2005), was named Best Documentary at the 2006

Mainichi Film Awards The are a series of annual film awards, sponsored by Mainichi Shinbun (毎日新聞), one of the largest newspaper companies in Japan, since 1946. It is the first film festival in Japan. History The origins of the contest date back to 1935, ...

Early life

Satō was born in

Hirosaki is a city located in western Aomori Prefecture, Japan. On 1 April 2020, the city had an estimated population of 168,739 in 71,716 households, and a population density of . The total area of the city is . Hirosaki developed as a castle town fo ...

Aomori Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan in the Tōhoku region. The prefecture's capital, largest city, and namesake is the city of Aomori. Aomori is the northernmost prefecture on Japan's main island, Honshu, and is bordered by the Pacific Ocean to the east, ...

, and raised in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

Filmography

* '' Living on the River Agano'' (1992, 阿賀に生きる) * '' Artists in Wonderland'' (1998, まひるのほし) * ''

Self and Others ''Self and Others'' is a psychological study by R. D. Laing, first published in 1961. It was re-issued in a second edition (1969), which (in Laing's words) was “extensively revised, without being changed in any fundamental way”. The book for ...

'' (2000, SELF AND OTHERS) * '' Hanako'' (2001, 花子) * '' Memories of Agano'' (2004, 阿賀の記憶) * '' Out of Place: Memories of Edward Said'' (2005, エドワード・サイード OUT OF PLACE)

References

External links

An English-language interview with Sato

Towards a Cinema of Absence - Satō Makoto in the Japanese and international context
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sato, Makoto 1957 births 2007 deaths Japanese documentary film directors Japanese documentary filmmakers Japanese film directors