Mrs. Wakai Makiko – Chairman of Jury Board For Short Films
Japanese filmmaker and film activist
Wakai Makiko is New Asian Currents program coordinator/programmer, of the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF), that aims to showcase and bring together emerging filmmakers from across the region. She is programmer, feminist, activist, filmmaker and beer-enthusiast based in Tokyo. Working for Tokyo International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival during college. She also co-organized Northern Ireland Film Festival in Tokyo (2008) and has worked on various international documentary projects shot in Japan such as Nanking (dir. Bill Guttentag, Dan Sturman, 2007), I Give You To These Kind Waters (dir. Lina Hoshino, 2010). Short film “To Whom It May Concern” (2006) screened in Thai short film festival.
Ongoing paid/unpaid works include: FAV (feminist active documentary video festa) that distributes/screens independent films in Japan; Visual Documentary Project (Kyoto-University-based film festival that showcases theme-specific short documentary films across Southeast Asia. And a decade-plus personal documentary project centering around a Japanese-Filipino family living in Asahi village, Yamagata, which led her to spend a year in Bataan, Philippines.