Toshiaki Toyoda

Toshiaki Toyoda (b. 1969, Osaka) played shogi (Japanese chess) professionally between the ages of nine and seventeen. He worked as a screenwriter on the film Checkmate (1991, dir. Junji Sakamoto) and has also co-written another of Sakamoto's films Biliken (1996). He wrote and directed a drama set in the streets of Tokyo Pornostar (1998), which received a number of awards. He then filmed a documentary portrait of four young boxers, Unchain (2000), and the feature Blue Spring (2001), inspired by a popular comic strip which Taiyo Matsumoto based on his own experiences larking about with older boys at his secondary school.

MFF Karlovy Vary