Randall Okita

Randall Okita is a Canadian film director, screenwriter and visual artist known for creating work that involves rich visual language and innovative approaches to storytelling. Career His 2014 National Film Board of Canada short film The Weatherman and the Shadowboxer has been described as “a visually stunning tour de force.” It won the award for Best Canadian Short Film at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, and was named to the festival's year-end Canada's Top Ten list of the year's ten best Canadian shorts. It also won awards for Best Short Film at the Festival du nouveau cinéma in Montreal, Best Experimental Short Film at both the New York Short Film Festival and LA Shorts Fest, as well as Best Cinematography at the Berlin International Short Film Festival. Once Right Now Just Then, Okita's 2015 performance which explored presence, the passing of time and the nature of grieving and expectation was presented as part of Sunday Drive Art Projects. Okita's 2016 feature directorial debut The Lockpicker, which “explores the complexity of adolescence” and “sustains an evocative and ominous mood that complements its moments of operatic intensity,” received the Discovery Award at the Canadian Screen Awards. The film won the Grand Jury Award at the San Diego Asian Film Festival 2016, Best First Feature at 2016 the Reel Asian Film Festival, and Best Narrative Feature at the 2016 West Virginia International Film Festival.