Atsushi Wada

WADA Atsushi (1980, Japan) is an animation filmmaker from Hyōgo. He studied at Osaka Kyoiku University, the Japan Institute of the Moving Image and Tokyo University of the Arts, and began making short animated films in 2002. His breakthrough was the masterful Day of Nose (2005), winning prizes at the festivals of Oberhausen and Norwich. Wada again gained international attention with In a Pig’s Eye (2010), which won awards at Fantoche and the London International Animation Festival, while The Mechanism of Spring (2010) premiered at the Venice Film Festival. In 2012, his film The Great Rabbit received the Silver Bear at Berlinale Shorts. His latest work, If You See a Cat (2025), continues his exploration of gesture, humour and quiet surrealism and is selected for IFFR’s 2026 Art Directions: immersive media programme. 

Filmography

(all short) A Whistle (2002), Be Vague (2002), This Mayonnaise Is Too Liquid (2002), Yellow (2003), Dancer of Vermicular (2004), The Thing of Rotation of Child (2004), A Clerk in Charge (2004), Day of Nose (2005), Gentle Whistle, Bird, and Stone (2005), A Manipulated Man (2006), A Smart Experiment (2006), Tokyo Loop (2006), Well, That’s Glasses (2007), In a Pig’s Eye (2010), The Mechanism of Spring (2010), The Great Rabbit (2012), Anomalies (2013), My Marsh (2017), American Football for All of Us (2019), My Exercise (2021), Bird in the Peninsula (2022), Damedayo (2023), If You See a Cat (2025)