Rea Tajiri

Rea Tajiri is a filmmaker and visual artist who earned her BFA and MFA degree from the California Institute of the Arts in post-studio art. She recently completed a new hybrid-documentary, Lordville, which premiered at CAAMFest 2014 at the Pacific Film Archives and is currently in festival distribution. In this new work, Tajiri explores the ways in which landscape, memory and history reverberate in a small New York town on the Delaware River. Professor Tajiri’s earlier works have been included in several major film festivals. Her award winning personal essay film History and Memory, premiered at the 1991 Whitney Biennial and won several awards including the Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association, and a Special Jury Award; New Genres from the San Fransisco International Film Festival. The film has been written about by film scholars such as Bill Nichols, Laura U. Marks, Michael Renov and writer David L. Eng. Tajiri and civil-rights organizer Pat Saunders co-produced a film on the life of Harlem human-rights activist Yuri Kochiyama entitled: Passion for Justice. Both films are currently in distribution with Women Make Movies. Tajiri’s debut dramatic feature film Strawberry Fields was funded through an ITVS Production Grant and had its European premier at the 54th Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica (Venice Film Festival) in 1997. It won the Grand Prix at the Fukuoka Asian International Film Festival the following year. The film received distribution through Vanguard Releasing. Tajiri is a two-time recipient of the Rockefeller Media Fellowship, and two NEA Visual Arts Fellowships. She was awarded residencies from the MacDowell Colony and Smack Mellon. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Theater, Film and Media Arts at Temple University where she teaches documentary production. Tajiri served as the 2012-13 Faculty Director for the Temple University Los Angeles Study Away Program.