Akimi Ota
Filmmaker, photographer, writer, PhD in anthropology, plant lover.
B. 1989, Tokyo


EDUCATION
2015-2019 PhD, Social Anthropology with Visual Media, University of Manchester
2012-2014 Master, Ethnology and Social Anthropology, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris
2008-2012 Bachelor, Cross-Cultural Studies, Kobe University


SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2018 Gastronomica Amazónica (Fed Ethnographer), University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom
2013 Aventures Urbaines, Paris Dauphine University, Paris, France
2011 Faces of Morocco, Contemporary Art Space Osaka, Osaka, Japan


SELECTED AWARDS, HONOURS & GRANTS

2020 Best Documentary Feature Award, Kanarta, Rameshwaram International Film Festival
2020 Best Documentary Film Award, Kanarta, Calcutta International Cult Film Festival
2020 Best Documentary Feature Award, Kanarta, New York Movie Awards
2020 Best Documentary Feature Award, Kanarta, Florence Film Awards
2020 Best Documentary Feature Award, Kanarta, Beyond Earth Film Festival
2020 Fejos Postdoctoral Fellowship in Ethnographic Film, Wenner-Gren Foundation
2020 Best Student / First-Time Director Award, Kanarta, Asian Cinematography Awards
2020 Best Feature Documentary Award, Kanarta, New Cinema Lisbon Monthly Film Festival
2020 Best Feature Director Award, Kanarta, New Cinema Lisbon Monthly Film Festival
2020 3rd Best First Time Feature Director Award, Kanarta, Prague International Monthly Film Festival
2020 Finalist for Best First Time Feature Director Award, Kanarta, Košice International Monthly Film Festival
2020 Finalist for Best First Documentary Film, Kanarta, Sweden Film Awards
2018 Scholarship for Japanese International Students, Honjo International Scholarship Foundation
2016 Fieldwork Bursary, University of Manchester
2015 Scholarship for Japanese Postgraduate Students Studying Abroad, JASSO
2013 Fieldwork Internship Grant, EHESS


SELECTED WRITINGS

2022 「色彩を持った遠近感、あるいはヘテロトピアについて」、水戸部七絵＆根本祐杜2人展「L字の金髪と発掘された人」レビュー、Tokyo International Gallery
2022 「今立っているその場所に、すでにある多世界―抵抗者としてのアピチャッポン・ウィーラセタクン試論」、ユリイカ
2021 Imagining Distant Ecologies in Hypersonic Tokyo: A Review of “Floating Between the Tropical and Glacial Zones”. Global Art Daily E-ISSUE 03
2021 知床、アマゾン、東京。3つの極点の交わりが開く新たなエコロジー観。太田光海評 上村洋一＋黒沢聖覇「冷たき熱帯、熱き流氷」展、美術手帖ウェブ版
2020 Silent, on the River, Traveling Circus of Urbanism ZINE Vol.1
2019 Cultivating the Real at the Edge of the Forest: A Ciné-Ethnography of Embodied Knowledges and Entangled Selves among the Shuar and Wampis in Northwest Amazonia, PhD Thesis presented at the University of Manchester
2019 鼓動 (Kodô, “Heartbeat”), Mele Archipelago: Homage to Ștefan Baciu for the Poet’s Centennial Annversary
2015 永劫回帰する「郊外」、あるいは人種を巡るフランスの認識論的危機について　(”Eternal return of the ‘suburbs’, or the cognitive crisis concerning race in France”), 現代思想 (”Journal of Contemporary Philosophy”)
2014 Ambition sportive et création de sociabilité : ethnographie d’une équipe de lycéens au Red Star Football Club à Saint-Ouen, Master Thesis presented at the EHESS


SELECTED TALKS
2021-2022 Filmmaker talk after screening “Kanarta: Alive in Dreams” in cinemas nationwide in Japan　全国の映画館で『カナルタ　螺旋状の夢』上映後トーク
2019 知と身体のコスモポリティクス (“The Cosmopolitics of the Body and Knowledge”), Materialism of Archive, Kobe, Japan
2019 “Filmar el mundo vivido y crear sentidos: discusiones para una antropología visual abierta”, FLACSO, Quito, Ecuador
2019 “Comentario sobre la producción documental”, Antropologías Visuales en Latinoamérica, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, Peru
2018 “The Taste of Plastic: The Decline of Ceramic Vessels in Shuar and Wampis Communities in the Upper Amazon (Ecuador and Peru)”, Royal Anthropological Institute Conference: Art, Materiality and Representation, London, United Kongdom
2018 “Sobre la producción de conocimiento de plantas en Amazonía hoy: una experiencia de campo con un hombre Shuar, Ecuador”, International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association, Barcelona, Spain
2018 “The Politics of the ‘Natural’: Eating Healthy in Deforested Amazonia, Ecuador and Peru”, Eating for Change: Global and Local Perspectives on Food and Transformation, University of California Davis, United States



LANGUAGES: Japanese, English, French, Spanish, Dutch, Shuar