Randall Okita

Canadian director and artist

Randall Okita is a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and visual artist^[1] known for creating work that involves rich visual language^[2] and innovative approaches to storytelling.^[3]

Career

His 2014 National Film Board of Canada short film The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer won the Best Canadian Short Film award at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. It was named to the festival's year-end Canada's Top Ten list of the year's ten best Canadian shorts. It also won awards for Best Short Film at the Festival du nouveau cinéma in Montreal, Best Experimental Short Film at both the New York Short Film Festival and LA Shorts Fest, and Best Cinematography at the Berlin International Short Film Festival.

Once Right Now Just Then, Okita's 2015 performance, which explored presence, the passing of time, and the nature of grieving and expectation, was presented as part of Sunday Drive Art Projects.

Okita's 2016 feature directorial debut, The Lockpicker received the Discovery Award at the Canadian Screen Awards. The film won the Grand Jury Award at the San Diego Asian Film Festival 2016, Best First Feature at the 2016 Reel Asian Film Festival, and Best Narrative Feature at the 2016 West Virginia International Film Festival.

In 2016, Be Here Now, an interactive multimedia installation made from feathers, wood, wire, and interactive sound and light, was part of an exhibition of artworks at the Robert Kananaj Gallery, and a part of a group exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

The Book of Distance is a room-scale virtual reality experience written and directed by Okita. It was an official selection at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, 2020 Venice International Film Festival, and 2020 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. It won the 2020 Festival du Nouveau Cinema’s FNC Explore Prix Horizon, 2020 Vancouver International Film Festival’s Best in Animation - Virtual/Mixed Reality, 2020 Kaohsiung Film Festival’s VR Golden Fireball Award and 2020 Japan Prize’s Best Work in Digital Media Division. His film See for Me premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival.^[4]

In 2021, Randall directed the IFC film See For Me, which screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and the BFI London Festival.

References

^ "Q&A with Visual Artist Randall Okita". Skwigly. 2014-09-04. Retrieved 2020-05-13.
^ "INTERVIEWS - Randall Okita discusses "The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer"". Retrieved 2020-05-13.
^ Canada, Service (2015-10-07). "Reel Asian features two innovative NFB shorts from acclaimed Toronto artists, Randall Okita's The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer and Howie Shia's BAM". gcnws. Retrieved 2020-05-13.
^ John Fink, "Tribeca Review: See For Me is a Predictable Home Invasion Thriller with a New Twist". The Film Stage, June 16, 2021.