Thomas Ash earned an MA in Film and Television Production at the University of Bristol, UK (2005) and has lived in Japan for a total of 18 years.
Thomas’s first feature documentary, ‘the ballad of vicki and jake’ (2006), received the Prix du Canton Vaud (best first film) at the 2006 Visions du Reél International Documentary Film Festival in Nyon, Switzerland. His two feature documentaries about children living in areas of Fukushima contaminated by the 2011 nuclear meltdown, ‘In the Grey Zone‘ (2012) and ‘A2-B-C‘ (2013), screened at festivals around the world where they received multiple awards.
The documentaries that followed also dealt with themes surrounding health and medicine in Japan. ‘-1287‘ (2014) received numerous awards, including the Audience Award for Best Feature at the 2015 Nippon Connection Film Festival in Germany and First Prize in the Asian Competition at the 2015 DMZ Docs Film Festival in Korea. “Dying at Home” (2016) and “Suturing Cultures” (2017), both commissions from NHK World, were on opposite end of the spectrum: one about end-of-life care and the other about the future doctors of Japan.
“Boys for Sale” (2017, dir. Itako), about male sex workers in Tokyo on which Thomas served as Executive Producer, screened in 40 film festivals across the world, receiving six awards for Best Feature Documentary.
In 2019, Thomas released two films: “おみおくり〜Sending Off〜“, the feature-length version of his film about end-of-life care in a small village in rural Japan, received the Audience Award at its World Premier in Germany in May, and his short “The Father’s Love Begotten“, about the sexual abuse of a young boy, received the Audience Award at its World Premier in Holland in April.
A preview of Thomas’s newest documentary 「牛久」(Ushiku), about asylum seekers to Japan being detained at the infamous Ushiku immigration centre, was held online on May 27, 2021, to an audience of over 1,600 viewers. The film will hold its World Premier in the 2021 Nippon Connection Film Festival from June 1-6, for which Thomas will also serve on the international jury.
(Source: DocumentingIan)