Akiko Izumitani

Samurai Girl LLC
Director, Screenwriter, Executive and Producer

Los Angeles, California

Member Since:
February 2025

Last online:
2 days ago

Invites sent:
0

About Akiko

Akiko Izumitani is a female director/writer born and raised in Kyoto, Japan. After graduating from high school, she came to the United States to pursue her dream of being a director in Hollywood. Akiko first earned recognition through her feature-length documentary Silent Shame (2010). It won numerous awards worldwide, including Best Feature in the Beijing Movie Festival, and has a screening at an Oscar Qualified film festival.

Several years later, Akiko directed Kung Fu Date, which won the Remi Award at the Houston Film Festival, and Sukiyaki with Love (Semi-Finalist of NBCUniversal Shortcuts). Her action short film, The Other Side, won the Best Short Film award at the Sacramento Asian Film Festival and the ECA Award from ICG, and she had a screening sponsored by ICG at DGA.

Akiko was a finalist of the Women of Color Commercial Directing Program (Top 10 out of 100+) in 2020, a semi-finalist of NBC Female Forward (Top 20 out of 1000) in 2018, Sony Directors Program (Top 25 out of 250) in 2017, and 2019, and ABC Director’s Program in 2014.

During the pandemic, she became a set production assistant in Bullet Train, where she also helped a set decoration department and prop masters as a set Japanese consultant.

Her latest short film, Yae: Blind Samurai Woman, was screened in notable film festivals, including the Austin Film Festival. She also won the Best Short Film at the Downtown Los Angeles Film Festival and the Reel Sisters Spirit Award at the Oscar-qualified Reel Sisters Film Festival. Yae: Blind Samurai premiered on YouTube in January 2023 and received over 500,000 views in two months. It received an enormous amount of compliments from audiences around the world.

Akiko is also a supervising producer at Aniplex of America. (Demon Slayer Kimetsu no Yaiba, Gurren Lagann. Sword Art Online, etc)

Gender:
Female

Ethnicity:
Asian

Badges

Certifications

Photos

Loglines

Rise of The Blind Samurai Woman Budget: $5M - $10M | Action ⋄ Fantasy In 18th century Japan, after a tragic accident, a teen girl destined to go blind from her healing powers must flee with her samurai father from both authorities and a young man seeking revenge.

Credits

Gurren Lagann (2024)
by Aniplex of America English Dub Supervising Producer
Yae: Blind Samurai Woman
Director/Writer/Producer
Demon Slayer: Kimetsuno Yaiba
by Aniplex of America (Action and Animation) English Dub Supervising Producer