Hirokazu Kore-eda (是枝 裕和, Koreeda Hirokazu, born 6 June 1962) is a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor. He began his career in television and has since directed more than a dozen feature films, including Nobody Knows (2004), Still Walking (2008), and After the Storm (2016). He won the Jury Prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival for Like Father, Like Son and won the Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival for Shoplifters.
Kore-eda's father was born in Taiwan before being conscripted into the Japanese military during World War II and detained in Siberia for 3 years after the end of the war. His paternal grandparents could not marry under Japanese law at the time as they had the same last name, so they eloped to Taiwan where they could, which was then under Japanese colonial rule. He has cited this as a reason for his affinity toward Taiwan.
Kore-eda was born in Nerima, Tokyo, Japan. He is the youngest of three children with two older sisters. From a young age, Kore-eda would spend time watching movies with his mother. He said through an interpreter, "My mother loved films! She adored Ingrid Bergman, Joan Fontaine, Vivien Leigh. We couldn’t afford to go together to the cinema, but she was always watching their movies on TV. She stopped all family business or discussions to watch these movies. We would watch together. So I adored film – like her."

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