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Nagisa Oshima (大島 渚, Ōshima Nagisa , born March 31, 1932, Kyoto) is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope (愛と希望の街; Ai to kibō no machi) in 1959. Ōshima's cinematic career and influence developed very swiftly, and early watershed films Cruel Story of Youth (青春残酷物語), The Sun's Burial (太陽の墓場) and Night and Fog in Japan (日本の夜と霧) all followed in 1960. The last of these... MORE

Nagisa Oshima (大島 渚, Ōshima Nagisa , born March 31, 1932, Kyoto) is a Japanese film director and screenwriter. After graduating from Kyoto University he was hired by Shochiku Ltd. and quickly progressed to directing his own movies, making his debut feature A Town of Love and Hope (愛と希望の街; Ai to kibō no machi) in 1959. Ōshima's cinematic career and influence developed very swiftly, and early watershed films Cruel Story of Youth (青春残酷物語), The Sun's Burial (太陽の墓場) and Night and Fog in Japan (日本の夜と霧) all followed in 1960. The last of these 1960 films explored - in challenging fashion - Ōshima's disillusionment with the traditional political left, and his frustrations with the right, and Shochiku withdrew the film from circulation after less than a week, claiming that, following the recent assassination of the Socialist Party leader by a right-wing extremist, there was a risk of “unrest”. Ōshima left the studio in response, and launched his own independent production company. Despite the controversy, Night And Fog In Japan was placed tenth in that year's Kinema Jumpo's best-films poll (among Japanese critics), and it has subsequently amassed considerable acclaim abroad. Subsequently, LESS