Award-Winning Japanese Director Akiko Izumitani's YAE: BLIND SAMURAI WOMAN as Official Selection for DANCES WITH FILMS

Dances With Films now in its 25th year is more committed than ever to highlighting diversity and inclusion. Following that tradition and commitment, Japanese Director Akiko Izumitami's short film Yae: Blind Samurai Womanhas been announced as an Official Selection. The film will screen on June 13th at 4:45 p.m. at TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

Yae: Blind Japanese Woman takes us to 18th century Japan, where a blind woman's father is killed by a young samurai who was avenging his own father's death. The blind girl agrees to be escorted to the nearest village.

"I am thrilled to be able to screen Yae: Blind Samurai Woman at the L.A.'s largest film festival, Dances With Films which was named as Top 10 North American film festival by USAToday. We are eager to see audience reactions to a female samurai who is also blind but not afraid of what it's in front of her. My co-writer James 'Doc' Mason and I wanted to create "Seven Samurai meets Green Mile." I wanted to show how a samurai film could be made in the English language. After we made this film, we felt this story and its characters have so much potential. We wrote a pilot version and its bible of "Yae: The Blind Samurai Woman" limited series based on this short." said director Izumitani.

Akiko Izumitani, Director

The film stars Masa Kanome (Austin Powers, Goldmember), Yuwi Kim (The Music Box) and Nobuaki Shimamoto (Hecksaw Ridge.) Written by Akiko Izumitani and James "Doc" Mason.

Alliance of Women Directors (AWD) Member Akiko Izumitani is a female writer/director born and raised in Japan. Akiko first earned recognition through her feature-length documentary, Silent Shame (2010). The film won numerous awards worldwide, including Best Feature in the Beijing Movie Festival, and has a screening at an Oscar Qualified film festival. The film was sold to several territories including China and Denmark.

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

While Izumitani was working for 20th Century FOXas a project manager, she also studied screenwriting, taught man-to-man by Monte Merrick (Writer of Mr. Baseball and Memphis Belle), and Jonathan Tsuneishi (A script analyst at 20 Century Fox.)

Akiko Izumitani was selected as one of the top rising Asian American filmmakers in 2013. She is represented by Espada PR & Entertainment.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE TRAILER FOR: Yae: Blind Japanese Woman