Kimi Takesue

Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor

Kimi Takesue is an award-winning filmmaker and the recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Film. In 2018 she received a highly-competitive national “Breakthrough Award” and fellowship from Chicken and Egg Pictures for her contributions to the documentary field. Other honors include a Rockefeller Media Arts Fellowship, two artist fellowships from NYFA, a Kodak Cinematography Fellowship, a CAAM Fellowship (Center for Asian American Media), and grants from Catapult, ITVS, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, NYSCA, and the Arts Council of England. She is an eight-time fellow at Yaddo, Bogliasco, and the MacDowell Colony.

Takesue’s documentary 95 AND 6 TO GO was nominated for the prestigious 2017 European Doc Alliance Award. The film screened at over twenty-five international festivals including CPH:DOX, Dok Leipzig, DOC NYC, Doclisboa, BAFICI-Buenos Aires International Festival of Cinema, and Krakow Film Festival. The film garnered Special Jury Prizes for Best Documentary at Indie Memphis, the Austin Asian-American Film Festival, and the Los Angeles Asian International Film Festival.

Takesue’s critically acclaimed Ugandan feature-length documentary WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME? was commissioned by the International Film Festival Rotterdam and premiered at the festival, followed by screenings at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), the LA Film Festival, and festivals in Sweden, Switzerland, Italy, Uganda, Poland, Portugal and India, among others. WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME? was theatrically released by Icaus Films, was a Critics’ Pick by Time Out-New York and LA Weekly and was described by Variety as, “Beautifully meditative...an uplifting observational documentary that plays on seeing and being seen.”

Takesue’s films have screened at more than two hundred film festivals and museums internationally including Sundance, New Directors/ New Films (MoMA & Lincoln Center), Locarno, Rotterdam, SXSW, Mar del Plata, London’s ICA, Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, the Walker Art Center, and the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) and have aired on PBS, IFC, Comcast, and the Sundance Channel.

Film honors include BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY, Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema; SPIRIT OF SLAMDANCE AWARD, Slamdance Film Festival; ITVS Futurestates AUDIENCE AWARD; GRAND JURY PRIZE, Brooklyn International Film Festival; GOLD MEDAL & GRAND JURY PRIZE, Brno International Film Festival, Czech Republic; JURORS’ CHOICE AWARD (1st place), Black Maria Film and Video Festival; BEST NARRATIVE SHORT, San Diego Asian Film Festival; and the GOLDEN REEL: NEW VISIONS AWARD, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

Takesue's films are distributed by Women Make Movies and Icarus Films. She is Associate Professor in the Department of Arts, Culture, and Media at Rutgers University-Newark.  

Chiemi Karasawa

Producer

Award-winning producer Chiemi Karasawa founded Isotope Films in 2007 to develop and produce content based on non-fiction sources. Her producing credits include ELAINE STRITCH: SHOOT ME; HARRY DEAN STANTON: PARTLY FICTION; LOVE ETC.; ELEVATE; BILLY THE KID and the Academy Award nominated epic, THE BETRAYAL. Her films have premiered at prestigious films festivals including the Sundance Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival, Venice Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, SXSW, and the Tribeca Film Festival; and have been distributed domestically and internationally in theaters, on HBO, POV, OWN, NetFlix, Hulu, and iTunes. She began her career as a Script Supervisor in feature film and television production alongside such notable directors as Spike Jonze, Jim Jarmusch, Larry Clark, Sam Mendes, Stephen Frears and Martin Scorsese.

Richard Beenen

Co-Producer

Richard Beenen is a visual artist / photographer / producer whose fine art and video art have been exhibited at MoMA, Museo D'Arte Contemporanea Roma, White Columns (NYC), Los Angeles Museum of Art, Viper-Basel, Courtisane Festival, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Richard has co-produced numerous award-winning documentaries and short fiction films that have screened at film festivals and museums internationally including Sundance, Rotterdam, SXSW, Los Angeles Film Festival, Locarno, and MoMA (NYC).

Sophie Luo

Associate Producer

Sophie Luo is a film and video producer based in New York. Her recent work includes videos & campaigns produced for Gap, Ciroc,  Equinox, NYU, and the National Institute for Reproductive Health, and producing credits on the films GOLD RUSH (dir. Habiba Alcindor) and DRIVING OUR MOM'S FALCON (dir. Alle Hsu).