Koji Yamamura

Koji Yamamura was born in Japan in 1964 and made his first animated film at the age of 13. During his university studies in Tokyo he began working in animation studios and in 1993 founded his own production house, the Yamamura Animation. He has won the Grand Prix at all major festivals dedicated to animated films – Annecy, Ottawa, Zagreb and Hiroshima, and also received an Academy-Award nomination.

Koji Yamamura is a director, writer, editor, animator, sometimes producer of his own short films, author of music videos, television advertisements, illustrator of children's literature and textbooks. He has created many films for both the child and adult audiences. His works are marked by an original sense of humour – bordering on the surreal, unbounded fantasy and a unique artistic style that often combines dexterous drawings, paintings, photography, 3D objects and puppets. His career’s turning point came with the release of Atama-Yama (Mt. Head) in 2003. Having won awards at many festivals worldwide, the work’s success was crowned by an Oscar nomination in the short films category. His following productions, adaptations of European authors, were also a success. Toshi Wo Totta Wani (The Old Crocodile, 2005) was based on a story by Leopold Chauveau and Kafka Inaka Isha on Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor (2007).

Yamamura Animation