Director
Fumio Kamei
118 years · Fukushima Prefecture, Japan · 12 films
Fumio Kamei (1908–1987) was a Japanese documentary and fiction film director known for his politically charged works. Influenced by Soviet montage theory, he began his career at Photo Chemical Laboratories (PCL), making propaganda films about Japan’s war in China. His 1939 film Fighting Soldiers was banned for its unflinching portrayal of exhausted troops, and he later became the first director to lose his license under the 1939 Film Law and the only filmmaker arrested under the Peace Preservation Law. After World War II, Kamei helped reorganize Nippon Eiga-sha and directed The Japanese Tragedy (1946), a documentary critical of Japan’s imperialist past, which was ultimately censored. He continued making politically engaged documentaries and fiction films, tackling issues such as U.S. military bases in Japan, nuclear weapons, social discrimination, and environmental destruction.
Best known for
Filmography 12
Men Are All Brothers
1960 · Director
The World Is Terrified: The Reality of the “Ash of Death”
1957 · Director
Record of Bloodshed: Sunagawa
1957 · Editor, Director
It Is Good to Live
1956 · Director
A Lonely Woman in a Lonely Land
1953 · Director
Become a Mother, Become a Woman
1952 · Director
A Woman's Life
1949 · Director
War and Peace
1947 · Director
Tragedy of Japan
1946 · Director
Kobayashi Issa
1941 · Director
Fighting Soldiers
1939 · Director, Editor
Shanghai
1938 · Director, Editor