"Follow trends in trivial matters. Observe morals in important matters. I follow my own path when it comes to art."
So declared Yasujiro Ozu, the Japanese master whose personal code shaped cinema’s most enduring portraits of domestic life, time, and transience.
THE OZU DIARIES discovers that artistic and humanistic path through the master's private journals, interviews, letters, photographs, and sketches - alongside never-before-seen 8mm home movies.
Academy Award-nominee Daniel Raim crafts an unprecedented intimate portrait that transcends traditional biography. Through Ozu's own words, we witness a young rebel who risked his career in 1931, standing alone against the industry's rush to sound: "To keep my word might mean giving up directing completely. So be it!" This act of defiance forged the visual poetry that would define cinema's most empathetic observer of family life.
War shatters everything. Conscripted to China with his Leica camera, Ozu documents horror and humanity while mourning his closest friend, director Sadao Yamanaka. But war strips away something deeper: "All that remained was the soldier," he writes. THE OZU DIARIES reveals how Ozu transformed wartime trauma, pain, and loss into his post-war masterworks — Early Summer, Tokyo Story, and An Autumn Afternoon.
Contemporary voices - Wim Wenders, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Tsai Ming-liang, Luc Dardenne - reveal how Ozu's cinema speaks urgently to our moment.
The film centers on family and war as twin forces shaping his work, grounding Ozu's artistry in his formative relationships with his parents. Featuring new interviews with surviving collaborators, including Kyoko Kagawa, what emerges is an unprecedented three-dimensional portrait revealing Ozu's complexity - not the mythic figure of legend, but a man who, like a clown, masked deep loneliness with humor and humanity. An artist who transformed personal pain into universal art.
For more information,
contact Producer Yuki Machida
