Born in Tokyo, Japan, director of Japanese TV documentary from 1998 to 2004, Ryuji Otsuka went to Beijing in 2005 and finished his first narrative film LINGLING’S GARDEN (as Director and scriptwriter, 2009, Cologne Chinese Festival Audience Award). As a DoP, he participated in JUDGE (2009, Liu Jie, Venezia Orizzonti), THE WARMTH OF ORANGE PEEL (2010, Huang Ji, Berlinale Generation), EGG AND STONE (2012, Also as a producer, Huang Ji, Tiger Award Rotterdam IFF), WHEN NIGHT FALLS (2012, Ying Liang, Locarno Best Director). His style was described by IFFR as “The beautifully framed, conscious choice of camerawork is relevant to storytelling, and unveils human secrets”. From 2013, he started making a documentary by his own, TRACE (Hong Kong IFF), which portrayed a period of life disturbed by the Senkaku Islands dispute. In 2014, his second documentary BEIJING ANTS (Hotdocs) was about capitalism in modern China. Since 2010, he has been teaching at the Lixianting Film School in Beijing.
China