Nippon Rising Star Award
This year, Nippon Connection will present the NIPPON RISING STAR AWARD for the first time. The new honorary award is dedicated to outstanding young talents of Japanese cinema. The first recipient of the award will be actress and singer Toko MIURA. She gained international attention with her leading role in Ryusuke HAMAGUCHI’s Academy Award-winning drama DRIVE MY CAR (2021), which we will show as a special screening at the festival.
Toko MIURA can also be seen in the anti-romance I AM WHAT I AM by Shinya TAMADA and the highschool road movie OUR HUFF AND PUFF JOURNEY by Daigo MATSUI. Besides participating in Q&A sessions after the film screenings, she will also reflect on her career in an extensive talk on Saturday, June 10, at 3:00 p.m.. The award ceremony will take place on June 11, at 7:45 p.m. at Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm.
About Toko MIURA
Toko MIURA was born in Hokkaido Prefecture in 1996. Initially appearing in TV dramas, she played her first cinema role in Takashi MIIKE’s LESSON OF THE EVIL in 2012. In addition to working for film and television, she has been acting regularly in theater plays since 2009 while she also reached an international audience as a singer with the soundtrack for the anime WEATHERING WITH YOU (2019) by Makoto SHINKAI. She received numerous Japanese acting awards for her role in DRIVE MY CAR.