
Kazutaka Watanabe
Directing
Biography
Kazutaka Watanabe worked in a range of film industry and film festival positions before establishing his company, E.x.N K.K., in 2014 to plan and produce films from A to Z. He had produced 3 features, 2 are co-production, and 1 short film. Since 2017, he works as a coordinator at Rough Cut program in Yamagata International Documentary FF. He once in a while holds screening workshops for the locals in Japan to experience what it is like to observe films/footages, he met while working. E.x.N K.K. is a Film Production that plans, produces, and makes subtitles for films and audiovisual media. It creates films from international and local perspectives in Asia using a style unbound by country or nationality. He is known for directing the Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan (2020) as well as Rohan at the Louvre (2023).
Known For

A live-action adaptation that translates this deep legacy to the screen. Set in Kyoto at the end of the Edo period, the story depicts the intense and passionate lives of the Shinsengumi - the iconic samurai force that defended Kyoto in the final years of Japan's shogunate - through spectacular action and a bold interpretation based on historical facts. The story follows street brawler Toshizo Hijikata (Yuki Yamada), who finds a new kind of family in Isami Kondo and Soji Okita. Hijikata and his comrades in the Shinsengumi forge a bond of loyalty - tested by betrayal, illness, and war - as they fight not only their enemies but their own ideals.
Song of the Samurai - Chapter: Youthful Days in Edo

Comic creator Rohan Kishibe, along with his partner-cum-editor, Kyōka Izumi, challenge various incidents beyond human knowledge.
Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan

The 39th NHK Taiga Drama is Aoi Tokugawa Sandai. It is James Miki's dynamic and colorful tale of three generations of the Tokugawa dynasty--from its founder Ieyasu to Iemitsu, the third Shogun who solidified the Tokugawa power base.
Aoi: Tokugawa Three Generations

A drama about a rookie detective who teams up with a veteran detective and develops a good rapport while overcoming difficulties. Keigo starts his new post at a local police station where he partners up with Shoichi, a frigid, yet warm-hearted, detective on the verge of retirement. The drama features how the young detective builds up his career with the veteran and those who are connected with his cases.
Keiji no Genba

Arai Naohito is a CODA (children of deaf adults) who becomes a sign language interpreter after losing his job and family in order to restart his life. The drama tells the story of a sign language interpreter who interprets for the deaf in criminal trials.
Deaf Voice: A Sign-Language Interpreter in Court

No description available.
Ima da kara, shinsaku drama tsukuttemimashita

The setting is Japan. After the bursting of its asset-inflated "bubble economy" in 1990, the country is suffering an economic hangover. Foreign capital is flooding in, and great transformations are underway. Accountant Kenji Wakasugi's auditing firm is divided into two camps. The "doves" favor overlooking what are called "window-dressed accounts" so as to allow businesses to recover their financial footing. The "hawks" won't ignore the slightest infraction, holding that inferior firms should be allowed to perish. Wakasugi himself believes in strict accounting practices -- until he is brought face-to-face with the distress and even deaths of employees of companies forced to go under. This is a fictionalized report from the economic front lines, replete with human interest.
The Auditor

Kyoto in the late Edo period. Amidst the intrigue and betrayal swirling within the Mibu Roshigumi, Hijikata Toshizo resolves to become a "demon," caught between friendship and duty. The internal conflict with the tyrant Serizawa Kamo escalates into a life-or-death struggle for his comrades, eventually leading to the final battle in Shimabara. And with that, the age of the sword comes to an end…
Song of the Samurai - Chapter: Fateful Showdown in Kyoto

In the face of the misery in his homeland, the artist Masuji Ono was unwilling to devote his art solely to the celebration of physical beauty. Instead, he put his work in the service of the imperialist movement that led Japan into WWII.
An Artist of the Floating World

While on vacation in Venice, author Rohan Kishibe is mistaken for a priest and hears the confession of a horrific crime. Rohan becomes engrossed in this mysterious confession and uses his special ability to turn people into books and read their memories and experiences…
Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan: At a Confessional

Sugimoto Taeko moves in with her daughter Natsuki and granddaughter Mizuki. They begin a lively life together. In the midst of it all, Taeko sees her former self in Mizuki. The bitter taste of the first pineapple she ever ate, the disastrous score on a math test, the awakening of her acting spirit at a school performance. As Taeko recalls her elementary school days, she unleashes a dream that she had long given up on and sealed away. 'I'm going to be on stage!' Taeko immediately auditions and devotes herself to rehearsing for a Shakespeare play. But just then, the theatre where she was going to perform goes bankrupt, and she is forced to give up on her dream again!
Only Yesterday

Orimoto Shinnosuke, a former popular news anchor, was forced to leave the nationwide news program “Showtime 7” for a certain reason. Orimoto, now a negotiator, forcefully goes live on air to negotiate with a bomber. Based on the 2013 Korean film “Terror, Live.”
SHOWTIME 7

Rohan Kishibe is a mangaka who can read people like a book. At work on a new creation, Rohan recalls a tale of the blackest painting ever made. Called the most evil of paintings, it used a paint that should not exist. Driven by the events linked to it, Rohan and his editor, Izumi, go to the Louvre in France for answers.
Rohan at the Louvre

No description available.
雪国 -SNOW COUNTRY-

In the hope of reuniting with their scattered family, four-year-old Shafi and his nine-year-old sister Somira leave a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh on a perilous journey to reach Malaysia.
Lost Land

Depicts the love story between an idle author and a provincial geisha.
Snow Country

No description available.