Toqué Studio LLC is a creative studio that engages profoundly with its subjects, society and communities, pursuing visual expressions that challenge the existing boundaries dividing self and other.

At the heart of our work lies an interdisciplinary approach that brings together documentary, visual anthropology and video art, alongside a transcultural perspective, which transcends and blends cultural boundaries. Rather than viewing different cultures and value systems in a static manner, we immerse ourselves in shifting boundaries and capture a reality that transforms moment by moment through interaction mediated by the camera.

With a deep respect for the history of cinematography, our body of work, which we express whilst crossing boundaries, sometimes as film and sometimes as fine art, renews the language of moving images, vividly shifts the viewer’s perspective, and creates the sensibilities that will shape the next era.

Practices

Through the following activities in particular, we present an uncompromising visual language and release it into society, retaining its sharpest edges.

1. FILM & ART PRODUCTION

Development and production of independent films and artworks using a cross-disciplinary approach.

2. DISTRIBUTION

A unique distribution model designed to bring the films we have produced to the public whilst preserving their integrity.

3. RESEARCH

Expanding the possibilities of visual expression and renewing visual culture through collaboration and experimentation with artists and researchers from other disciplines.

4. EDUCATION

Organising workshops designed to foster the next generation of creators by exploring cross-disciplinary visual expression aimed at ‘observing, filming and editing the world in depth’.

Founder

Akimi Ota

Filmmaker | Anthropologist | Artist

Born in Tokyo in 1989. After graduating from the Faculty of Cross-Cultural Studies at Kobe University, he moved to Paris and completed a Master’s degree in Anthropology at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). His research focused on a football club comprising mainly boys of migrant descent living in the Paris suburbs, examining the process by which young people from diverse backgrounds forge social relationships within French society. While studying, he worked as a journalist and photographer at the Kyodo News Paris bureau; it was also during this time, absorbing films from all eras and cultures at the Cinémathèque Française, that he discovered a passion for filmmaking. After completing his Master’s degree, he enrolled on the PhD programme in Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester in the UK. He conducted a year of fieldwork in Ecuador’s Amazonian rainforest, researching the relationship between the indigenous Shuar people and the forest. As a result of this research, he released her feature debut, “Kanarta: Alive in Dreams”, in 2020. The film, which was released in cinemas across Japan from 2021, has won numerous awards both in Japan and abroad, including the Best Student Film Award at the International Festival of Ethnological Films and the Excellence Award in the Cultural Documentary Film category at the Agency for Cultural Affairs Film Awards. In 2023, he established Toqué Studio LLC as a base through which to realise his unique cinematic approach.

Toqué Studio LLC

2nd Floor Kuwano Building, 6-23-4 Jingümae, Shibuya-ward, Tokyo, 150-0001, Japan

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