Kanai Katsu was born in 1936 the second son to a farming family from Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.

After studying film at the College of Art, Nihon University, he worked briefly in the film industry, joining a major studio company and freelancing as a commercial cinematographer. In 1960, he joined the Camera Division of the Daei FilmCorporation’s Tokyo Studios where he was mentored by Takahashi Michio and Kobayashi Setsuo. Kanai left Daiei at the end of 1964 to work as a freelance cameraman and later filled numerous roles within the world of commercial film production.

In 1968, Kanai formed Kanai Katsumaru Production, and the following year saw the first of many films that Kanai would independently direct, produce and screen. His Smiling Milky Way Trilogy, including "The Deserted Archipelago", "Good-bye", and "The Kingdom" positioned him as one of the pioneers of Japanese indies cinema. While later working as a producer for television, Kanai developed a series of visual poems —Dream Running (1987), Grasshopper’s One-Game Match (1988), and We Can Hear Joe's Poem (1989)—and in 1991 combined them into one work: The Stormy Times. This and the films that followed—Holy Theater and Super Documentary: The Avant-garde Senjutsu—reflect back upon his own filmmaking and personal history and pay poignant tribute to collaborators such as Motoharu Jonouchi, Atsushi Yamatoya and Jushin Sato who had since passed away.


His rSuper-Documentary: The Avant-Garde Senjutsu (2003) won the FIPRESCI International Critics’ Prize at the 50th Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, and Kanai was later selected for a special retrospective at the 53rd Oberhausen Festival (2007). (Source: kanai-katsu) Edit Biography