Yoju Matsubayashi
Documentary Filmmaker
Yoju Matsubayashi made his directorial debut with Flowers and Troops (2009), a documentary that follows Japanese soldiers who remained in Thailand after World War II. His 2013 film The Horse of Fukushima was screened in the competition section at Tokyo FILMeX and won the Grand Prix in the AsiaAfrica Documentary Competition at the Dubai International Film Festival.
In 2016, he stayed in São Paulo, Brazil, through the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ Program of Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists. His published work includes the book Bakuro.
Born in 1979 in Okawa City, Fukuoka Prefecture, he currently resides in Okinawa, Japan. As a documentary filmmaker, Matsubayashi has conducted fieldwork in over 30 countries, primarily across Asia. He contributes to newspapers and magazines in Japan and abroad, and works in both film and television documentary production.
He began backpacking across Asia in 1998 while attending Fukuoka University. In 2001, he entered the Japan Institute of the Moving Image and graduated in 2004. That same year, he approached the NGO Peshawar-kai but had to return from Afghanistan without filming due to safety concerns.
In 2005, he studied under freelance director Moriaki Endo and joined him on a documentary shoot in post-tsunami Aceh, Indonesia. Later that year, he reported on the elections in Kabul, Afghanistan, with coverage broadcast in four segments on Fuji TV’s News Japan.
From 2006, he began documenting former Japanese soldiers living in Thailand, leading to the creation of Flowers and Troops (2009).
In 2011, he released Fukushima: Memories of the Lost Landscape, which captured the aftermath of the nuclear disaster in Minamisoma. The film screened at international festivals including Yamagata, Hong Kong, and Edinburgh, and won the Visual Anthropology and Sustainable Development Award at the Jean Rouch International Film Festival in France.
In 2013, he released The Horse of Fukushima, which followed horses abandoned after the nuclear disaster. The film was screened at festivals such as IDFA in Amsterdam and Tokyo FILMeX, and received awards and recognition at more than 20 international film festivals.
In 2014, he stayed in São Paulo for about six months after The Horse of Fukushima was invited to South America’s largest documentary film festival.
In 2015, he released Reflection, which was screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival. He continued his residency in São Paulo in 2015 under the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ program.
Since 2017, he has been based in Okinawa, producing short films and contributing to news programs.
In 2019, he directed the 48-minute NHK BS-1 Special The Untold Forced Deportation, which investigated the wartime expulsion of Japanese Brazilians from Santos.
In 2020, he reworked that story into a feature film titled Okinawa Santos (directed, shot, and edited by Matsubayashi), which premiered in the competition section at Tokyo FILMeX.
About Genkōsha
Since 2011, Matsubayashi’s documentary works had been produced under the name “Sanjo-ma Films” (Three-Tatami-Mat Films). As he no longer lives in such a room, he began using the name “Genkōsha” in 2020. The company mainly produces documentary films and television programs.
About Genyosha
Since 2011, we have been producing documentary films made by Yohki Matsubayashi as Sanjyoma Film, but since 2013, we no longer live in Sanjyoma and will be working under this name starting in 2020. I mainly produce documentary programs and films.