DIRECTOR: COLD FISH

Born in 1961, Sion Sono first gained notice as a poet, when he started publishing in 1978 at the age of 17. After dropping out of university to make 8mm films, he debuted his first 30-minute short called I AM SION SONO! at the PIA Film Festival in 1985. In 1987 he competed in the festival with A MAN’S HANAMICHI and won the Grand Prize. In 1990, he made his first feature, BICYCLE SIGHS, which played in numerous festivals around the world, and followed that up with his 1992 feature, THE ROOM, which won a Special Jury Prize at the Tokyo Sundance Film Festival. In 1997, he staged a guerrilla street poetry project, “Tokyo GAGAGA,” which attracted much attention with its spontaneous street gatherings and performances. In 2001, he first gained international notoriety with his dark schoolgirl / pop music saga SUICIDE CLUB, and Sono followed it up with a Suicide Club novel and manga, as well as the follow-up film, NORIKO’S DINNER TABLE. In 2007, he made the “hair horror” film EXTE: HAIR EXTENSIONS, and in 2009, released the four-hour long LOVE EXPOSURE, which broke independent cinema box office records in Tokyo and went on to win two prizes at the Berlin Film Festival. With his career heading into the stratosphere both domestically and abroad, Sono seems poised to enter the realm of world-renowned filmmakers very soon. Case in point: his Sushi Typhoon COLD FISH was just invited to the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals, with more to come!