Creator

Masahiro Sugano

Masahiro Sugano is a filmmaker who works through the media lab Studio Revolt and directed the documentary Cambodian Son.

Masahiro Sugano is a Japanese filmmaker who directed the documentary Cambodian Son (2014) and co-founded the media lab Studio Revolt.[1][2] Through Studio Revolt he has made short videos about Cambodian deportations, feature documentaries and narrative films.[3]

Career

Sugano earned a BA in philosophy from Cal State Northridge and an MFA in film and animation from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he graduated in 2000.[3][4] His short animation Hisao debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 1999.[5] In 2010 he ran a Chicago production company, Eye from the Sky, Inc.[6]

He began working with the artist Anida Yoeu Ali in Chicago in 2005, when he made video and animation for her one-woman show Living Memory/Living Absence.[7] Together they founded Studio Revolt, a media lab based in Phnom Penh, which makes films, videos, installations and performance work.[4][8] Through Studio Revolt, Sugano introduced Cambodian Neo-Realism to young Khmer filmmakers.[9] Studio Revolt later moved to Tacoma, Washington, where it serves as an artist-in-residence program at the University of Washington Bothell.[8]

Sugano has taught filmmaking and animation to high school students in Chicago, and media production and communication theory at Loyola University, DePaul University and Columbia College.[10] He joined the University of Washington Bothell as an artist-in-residence in 2017. As a senior artist-in-residence there, he teaches art, filmmaking and global studies.[10][5]

Films

Sugano's first feature film, Second Moon, premiered at the Busan International Film Festival in 2006.[5] UIC Today names Art of Love as his first feature-length film, shown at international film festivals.[4]

His films made in Cambodia include Yarning for Love (2009), a documentary, and the dance film Neang Neak (Serpent Goddess) (2012), which he directed, filmed, edited and animated.[3] His short Why I Write won Best Poem Performance on Film at the 2012 Berlin Zebra Poetry Festival.[4]

Sugano met the poet Kosal Khiev in the summer of 2011, while making his first short film in Cambodia. Khiev recorded sound for that film.[11] Cambodian Son follows Khiev from prison in the United States to deportation and a life as a poet in Cambodia. Khiev went on to represent Cambodia at the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.[1][4] Sugano directed, filmed and edited the 90-minute film, and produced it with Ali; it was shot in Cambodia, the United Kingdom, France and the United States.[3][1] He traveled with Khiev to show it in Beijing, Berlin and Singapore, including at a youth detention center.[7] The web series Verses in Exile, about deportees, was made as a prequel to the film and was broadcast online on PBS.[4][3]

Headlock (2017) is a 20-minute short narrative film shot in Seattle. It follows two working-class men in Tacoma who are bound together, one holding the other in a headlock.[3] With Ali he has also made Project: Mistaken for Muslim, the Buddhist Bug series and the performance work The Red Chador.[8] His third feature, If Hafez Wrote a Haiku for Cowboys, was set to premiere in 2024. It links the daily lives of characters in Iran, Japan and the United States.[5]

Recognition

  • Student Academy Award nomination (1997)[3]
  • Best Poem Performance on Film, Berlin Zebra Poetry Festival (2012), for Why I Write[4]
  • Center for Asian American Media Innovation Fund (2013), for Verses in Exile[3]
  • LinkTV grand prize, with Anida Yoeu Ali, for Project: Mistaken for Muslim[8]
  • Artist Trust Grants for Artist Projects award (2017), for Headlock[3]

For Cambodian Son:

  • Best Documentary, CAAMFest (2014)[3]
  • Special Jury Prize, Cultural Resistance Film Festival of Lebanon (2014)[3]
  • Golden Hanoman Award, Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival (2015)[5]
  • Audience Choice Award, Bali International Film Festival[8]
  • Film + Change Award, Albuquerque Film Festival[8]
  • Documentary Award, National Asian American Journalists Association (2016)[3]

Works


See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Cambodian Son, Wikipedia
  2. ↑ universes.art, Masahiro Sugano (Studio Revolt), Asian Art Biennial 2015
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 Artist Trust, Masahiro Sugano
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 UIC Today, MFA grad presents award-winning documentary today
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts, The Red Chador: Stranded (2024)
  6. ↑ DePaul University, Asian American Art Oral History Project, Masahiro Sugano interview (2010)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Northwest Asian Weekly, Cambodian Son (April 28, 2015)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 Cambodian Son Teaching Guide (PDF)
  9. ↑ Dharamshala International Film Festival, Cambodian Son (2015)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 University of Washington Bothell, New dean, 16 new faculty for 2017 (September 15, 2017)
  11. ↑ Dharamshala International Film Festival, An Interview With Masahiro Sugano (August 24, 2015)
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This page was last edited on 26 September 2026, at 23:35.