Makoto Shinkai

Makoto Shinkai was born in Nagano Prefecture in 1973. In 2002, he debuted his self-produced short-film Voices of a Distant Star, which won many awards starting with the Tokyo International Anime Fair 21. In 2004, he created his first full-length movie The Place Promised in Our Early Days to great acclaim, which went on to win Best Animated Film at the 59th Mainichi Film Concours. In 2007, he released 5 Centimeters Per Second, which won Best Animated Feature Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, as well as the Lancia Platinum Grand Prize at Italy’s Future Film Festival. In 2011, Children Who Chase Lost Voices was released in theaters nationwide and presented internationally as a work unlike the world had ever seen before, winning the “Golden Monkey King” Award at the 8th China International Cartoon and Animation Festival and receiving another nomination for Best Animated Feature Film from APSA. In 2012, he received a Letter of Appreciation from the Cabinet Secretariat’s National Policy Unit as one of the “Global Messengers of Japan”. In 2013, he released The Garden of Words, which won Best Anime Feature Film in Germany’s Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film. In 2016, his newest film your name. won Best Animated Feature Length Film at the 49th Sitges Film Festival and the Best Animated Film at the 42nd Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards. Makoto Shinkai continues to receive acclaim domestically and internationally as one of the next generation of anime film directors.