Filmmaker/film director. Director Kosai Sekine’s sophisticated and witty sensibility is evident throughout all his work. His outsized creativity and storytelling stand poised at the crest of a new wave of branded and interactive content in Japan’s creative community, from feature films to short films, tvcs, music videos, and art installations.

He was born and raised in Tokyo with both parents in the modeling art field. During his university years at Sofia‘s Department of Philosophy, he took on an exchange program in the US, where his interest in photography flourished. That was when he wanted to become a filmmaker. After obtaining his degree, he started working at an advertising film production company as a production assistant.

Sekine made his debut in 2005 with the much-talked-about “Right Place”, which won him a Best Foreign Film in New York Short Film Festival. In the following year, he won the Young Director Grand Prix award at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity along with 3 Golds for his trailer he directed for the Raindance Film Festival. Furthermore, he ranked no 1 in the world by shot’s Young Directors Award.

In 2008, he earned his reputation by directing numerous short films, tvcs, and music videos nationally and internationally. He joined Stink: a film production company that houses various offices throughout the world. In 2014, he won the Cannes Lions Titanium Grand Prix with “Sound of Honda / Ayrton Senna 1984”, which became the most award-winning advertising film in a single year, in the world.

In 2018, he directed his first feature film, “Love, At Least”, based on the best-selling novel by Yukiko Motoya, about a girl with hypersomnia and her struggles in life. He won Silver at Shindo Kaneto Young Directors Award as well as Jury Award at Kinotayo Film Festival in France. In the same year, he released his feature-length documentary film “Tower of the Sun”. It depicts Japan’s long-term structural problem, which has been in dispute since the Osaka Expo.

Along with his feature films and various projects, Sekine has been active with his social engagement art collective, “NOddIN”. He has been creating art with social themes; nuclear issues, anti-war, refugee issues, etc. He is also a founding member of a film production called NION.