The recipients for this year's Akira Kurosawa Award has been decided on Director, Nikita Mikhalkov from Russia and Director, Chen Kaige from China. The Akira Kurosawa Award is an honoraly award of the Tokyo International Film Festival established in the year 2004 and is presented to the filmmakers who are recognized for creating numerous films which are extremely humanistic and entertaining.

●Director Nikita Sergeyevich Mikhalkov

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Born in 1945 in Moscow. Mikhalkov was born in the artistic family, his father was a playwright and a novelist; mother was a poet and a writer of children's book. His elder brother is a film director, Andrei Mikhalkov Konchalovsky.

He studied acting at the Moscow Art Theater. He drew attention with his appearance in the film, “I Step through Moscow” (1963). He later entered the VGIK state film school in Moscow and directed two short films. His graduating short film, “A Quiet Day at the End of the War” (1970) was highly appreciated. He made his feature film debut with “At Home Among Strangers” in 1974 and “An Unfinished Piece for Player Piano” (1977) received Golden Shell at San Sebastian International Film Festival. In 1991, his film “Urga” received the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and “Burnt by the Sun” received Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film.

He's other acclaimed films are “A Slave of Love” (1976), “Dark Eyes” (1987), “The Barber of Siberia” (1998) and “12” (2007).


●Director Chen Kaige

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Born in 1952 in Beijing, China. Following his graduation from the Beijing Institute of Cinematography with a degree in directing, Kaige joined the Beijing Film Studio. Over the course of time, he was transferred to the Guangxi Film Studio. In 1984, Kaige made his debut as a director with "The Yellow Earth”, which earned him a silver medal at the Locarno International Film Festival. Kaige has since gained international recognition as one of China’s rising, fifth-generation of directors.

His other films include “The Big Parade”, “King of the Children”, and “wa Koto no Gen no You ni” (a.k.a. Life on a String). His film, “Farewell To My Concubine” was a recipient of the Palme d’Or at the 1993 Cannes International Film Festival and was chosen as only film from mainland China to be selected as One Hundred Best International Films in History by the U.S. Time magazine.

His recent films are “Temptress Moon” (1996), “The Emperor and the Assassin” (1999), “Together” (2002) and “The Promise” (2005).