Takashi Ito

is a Japanese experimental filmmaker known for his avant-garde short films, including Spacy (1981), Thunder (1982), and Ghost (1984). His films are characterized by such photographic techniques as long-exposure and time-lapse photography, as well as a stop motion technique in which series of photographs are themselves photographed frame-by-frame, creating an animated effect. Ito's filmmaking style and interest in experimental film were influenced by his mentor Toshio Matsumoto, under whom Ito learned while a student at the Kyushu Institute of Design. Matsumoto's 1975 experimental short Ātman influenced Ito to create Noh (1977), an 8 mm short. Ito's first 16 mm short, Spacy, was completed in 1981. Spacy screened at several museums in and outside of Japan, as well as international film festivals and universities. Over the course of his career, Ito has directed a total of over 20 short films, a number of which have been shown at film festivals and as part of retrospective exhibitions on Ito's filmography. Ito's debut feature-length film, Toward Zero, premiered at the 2021 Image Forum Festival, and received a theatrical release in Japan in August 2022. Early life and education Takashi Ito was born in 1956 in Fukuoka, Japan, as the second son of his mother, a nurse, and his father, a journalist and fan of film. As a child, Ito watched anime produced by Toei Animation, as well as Disney animated films, but was disallowed by his father from seeing kaiju films like those in the Godzilla series. After being repeatedly asked by Ito, his father eventually acquiesced to letting him attend a double feature of the kaiju films Daimajin and Gamera vs. Barugon; he later recalled that his resulting elation worried his parents. Ito also enjoyed drawing manga, both copying and creating original stories based on works by such artists as Shotaro Ishinomori, Osamu Tezuka, and Mitsuteru Yokoyama. Between 6th grade and junior high school, Ito created a monster-themed manga titled Battle.