Yamamura, Koji

Koji Yamamura was born in Japan on June 4, 1964. He has made first animated film at 13 years old. Between 1983 and 1987, he studied painting at Tokyo Zokei University. While a student, he have worked in art assistance and special effects modeling for Majors movies. Same time he was influenced from short animated films in Canada, Russia, and Europe. Especially from Ishu Patel, Yury Norshtein and Priit P ärn. After graduation, he started his career as an animation background artist at Mukuo Studio. In 1989, he left the studio to work freelance. In 1993, he founded Yamamura Animation, Inc. with his wife Sanae. In 2002, He signed a contract with Acme Filmworks as an animation director. Yamamura has created many short animation films using a variety of techniques. Mt. Head (2002) was nominated for an Oscar in 2003, and awarded the 6 Grand Prix include Annecy 03, Zagreb 04 and Hiroshima 04. Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor (2007) awarded the Grand Prix at Ottawa in 07. He is first grand prix winner in all major international animation film festivals.
He has jury, lecture and held workshops at numbers of international film festivals for popularizing and advancement of art animation. He is also an illustrator and several picture books are published.
His big exhibition ”Yamamura Animation Museum" have held at Aichi Expo 05 in Japan and some other exhibitions have held at gallery and public museum in Japan.
His films have been shown in over 30 countries, and awarded various honorable prizes. Retrospective screenings of his works have been held in over 20 countries at Melbourne International Film Festival, National Film Theater in UK and so on.

He is currently a sub-chairman of the Japan Animation Association (JAA) and a member of the board of directors of the Japanese branch of the International Animated Film Association (ASIFA), and has been a visiting professor of Tokyo Zokei University since 2004 and a professor of depaertment of Animation, Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts since 2008.