FARALLON FILMS
Award-winning films by Steven Okazaki
BIOGRAPHY
STEVEN OKAZAKI
Steven Okazaki’s films explore the human consequences of historical events and social inequities. He is a four-time Academy Award® nominee and won the Oscar® for DAYS OF WAITING in 1990. He is also the recipient of a Primetime Emmy, a Peabody, Camerimage’s "Outstanding Achievement Award," the Banff World Media Festival Grand Prize, and the City of Hiroshima's "Honorary Citizen Award." His films explore a range of subjects - from nuclear war to drug addiction to pop culture in Tokyo to food-on-a-stick at the Minnesota State Fair.
Steven began his professional career in 1976, producing and directing children’s films for Churchill Films in Los Angeles. In 1982, he directed his first feature documentary SURVIVORS for WGBH Boston's “World” (now “Frontline”). In 1985, he received his first Oscar® nomination for UNFINISHED BUSINESS, the story three men who challenged the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. Studs Terkel called it "a powerful warning that hysteria, bigotry and moral cowardice demean us all."
In 1986, encouraged by an American Film Institute Fellowship, he moved in a different direction with LIVING ON TOKYO TIME. a low-budget comedy about a Japanese dishwasher’s green card marriage, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically by Skouras Pictures.
The Oscar® winning documentary DAYS OF WAITING, is the story of one of the few Caucasians to be interned with the Japanese Americans during World War II. TROUBLED PARADISE (1992) is an exploration of native culture and activism on the Big Island of Hawai'i. AMERICAN SONS (1994) features four actors and three musicians explores how Asian American men’s lives are shaped by racism. From 1993 to 1995, he collaborated with NHK, producing some of the earliest High-Definition documentary programming. Two films, ALONE TOGETHER: Young Adults Living with HIV and LIFE WAS GOOD, about a family living next to the Nevada Test Site, won UNESCO Awards in 1995.
In 1995, he began a twenty-year association with HBO Documentary Films, working with legendary Executive Producer Sheila Nevins. BLACK TAR HEROIN chronicled three years in the lives of young heroin addicts and was one of HBO's highest rated documentaries in 1999. REHAB (2005), a disturbing look at drug recovery programs, won the prestigious Nancy Dickerson Whitehead Award, honoring journalists who have "demonstrated the highest standards of reporting on drug issues." Steven received his third Oscar® nomination for THE MUSHROOM CLUB (2006), a personal look at the city of Hiroshima. His most ambitious production, WHITE LIGHT/BLACK RAIN (2007) is a vivid accounting of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which premiered at Sundance, won a Primetime Emmy for "Exceptional Merit in Non-Fiction Filmmaking," and the Grand Prize at the Banff World Media Festival. In 2009, he received his fourth Oscar nomination for THE CONSCIENCE OF NHEM EN, which tells the story of a 16 year-old Khmer Rouge soldier who photographed 6,000 men, women and children before they were tortured and executed.
From 2009 to 2011, he directed three shorts — CRUSHED: THE OXYCONTIN INTERVIEWS for ShadowCatcher Films; APPROXIMATELY NELS CLINE for Fantasy Studios; and ALL WE COULD CARRY for the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation.
In 2015, he produced HBO's HEROIN: CAPE COD, an intimate look at the heroin epidemic, which was screened for the White House and helped bring the issue to national attention. In 2016, he directed his last film, MIFUNE: THE LAST SAMURAI, about his childhood hero, legendary actor Toshiro Mifune, which screened at more than twenty international film festivals, including London and Telluride, and was released theatrically in the U.S. by Strand Releasing.
Segments from his films have been featured on The CBS Evening News, The NBC Nightly News, ABC News Nightline, CNN and Oprah. He is also a contributing writer to FIGHT OF THE CENTURY, published by Simon & Schuster in 2019, and the Executive Producer of Yuriko Gamo Romer’s DIAMOND DIPLOMACY, set to premiere in 2025.
Steven was born in 1952 and grew up in Venice, California. He graduated from Venice High School in 1970 and San Francisco State University's film program in 1976. In between films, he painted and played in various garage bands (including the infamous punk trio The Maids with TOKYO TIME co-writer John McCormick). He lives in the Bay Area with writer Peggy Orenstein. They have a daughter.