Kyoka Film

Kyoka Tsukamoto

Montréal based filmmaker Kyoka Tsukamoto has been working on some experimental films and essay works to establish her creative signature; the specificity of the film medium as the complexity of a mind - it is a sculpture of time and space, as it connects pieces of perceived reality, memories and dreams.

Experimentations of cinematic language and explorations in artistic storytelling methods have always been her great interests. The stories that she tells carry several layers of psychological, geographical, social, cultural and spiritual content that are organically entangled, to mirror human nature which is never simple.

Kyoka Tsukamoto produced/directed her first feature-length hybrid documentary “My Dearest Sister” which won the cinematography award from the Reelworld Film Festival, and earned the best female filmmaker award, “Die Tilda” nomination at the Braunschweig International Film Festival. The film was also an official selection at the Raindance Film Festival, the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM), and the Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma.

After graduating from the School of Fine Arts with a degree in Metal Craft (Toyama University), Tsukamoto, originally from Tokyo, moved to Canada to study film at Toronto Metropolitan University (Ryerson University). She then emigrated to Canada in 1998 and settled in Montreal, where she worked as an editor and a director. Since 2002, she has received several grants from arts councils, and produced and directed some artistic films, including her first feature-length essay which won Canada Council’s New Chapter grant and the support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and la Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC).

Tsukamoto also composes music for films and plays the piano. Since she started composing in 2014, the creation of music has become the vital force of the process of making films. Soundtrack is more than background sound that accompanies the moving image; it is like the soul of the body; something that is invisible, yet an essential spirit of a film that we watch.

My Dearest Sister / Ma soeur bien-aimée (2019)

Essay Documentary - HD & S8mm. 77min. Canada/Japan

It tells the story of two sisters, separated by time and culture, who seek to reunite after many years apart. Set against the backdrop of the tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear meltdown as well as modern Tokyo, the journey takes one sister on an odyssey, trying to recover her connection to the ancestral roots in the forgotten era of Queens. It allows her to finally unlock the source of her secret anguish and find her voice, an expression of her soul when playing the piano.

The feature-length hybrid film explores categorical boundaries of film forms and searches for a new creative cinematic expression. It combines both categories of autoethnographic experimental and essay, as it layers both the main character’s personal history as well as a larger theme of a journey home. By dramatizing events and characters, I transformed the true personal story into a narrative cinematic expression.

Grants Received

2023 The Canada Council for the Arts - Professional Development for Artists - the Explore and Create Program

2023 SODEC_LAB @ CPH:DOX – participation to the financing and co-production event at film festival in Copenhagen

2021-2022  Canada Council for the Arts – Grants to Film and Video Artist – Concept to Realization component 

2021-2022  Telefilm Canada – Canada Feature Film Fund – Development

2020-2021 Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec – Exploration and digital deployment – Film and Video

2020-2021 PRIM – Programme d'aide à la création

2020-2021 Canada Council for the Arts – Strategic Funds and Initiatives – Digital Originals – Media Arts

2019-2020 Canada Council for the Arts – Grants to Film and Video Artist  – Research and Creation component  

2019 Canada Council for the Arts – Travel component of the Arts Abroad Program

2019 Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec – Travelling Grant to attend Raindance Film Festival in UK

2018-2019 Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec – Grant Program for Professional Artists

2017-2018 Canada Council for the Arts – Grants to Film and Video Artist – The New Chapter Program

2017    Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec – Traveling Grant to attend International Forum at Visions du Réel in Switzerland

2017-2018 PRIM – Programme d'aide à la création

2015-2016 Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec – Grant Program for Professional Artists

2015-2016 PRIM – Programme d'aide à la création

2015-2016 Canada Council for the Arts – Grants to Film and Video Artist

2012-2013 Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec – Grant Program for Professional Artists

2011-2012 National Film Board of Canada – Filmmaker Assistance Program

2003-2004 National Film Board of Canada – Filmmaker Assistance Program

2002-2003 Canada Council for the Arts – Grants to Film and Video Artist