Chris Tashima
OSCAR award-winning director and actor.
Chris Tashima is a director and actor from Los Angeles whose film career spans over 40 years. He won an Academy Award® for Visas and Virtue (1997), a dramatic short film he directed, co-wrote and also starred in, portraying Holocaust rescuer Chiune Sugihara.
His acting roles have largely been in independent films, his biggest being the romantic lead opposite Joan Chen in Americanese (2006) which won a Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Ensemble Cast, at SXSW. More recently, Chris appeared in the comedy/drama, No No Girl (2022), earning a nomination for Best Actor, at Austin Revolution Film Festival.
Chris belongs to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences where he is currently serving as Governor for the Short Films Branch. He regularly judges Animated and Live Action Short Film entries for the Oscars®, and the Student Academy Awards®. He has judged at festivals internationally, including juries in Chile and the UK, in addition to numerous festivals throughout the US, including SXSW, Rhode Island International Film Festival, and Louisiana Film Prize. As a Directors Guild of America member, he annually judges for the DGA Student Film Awards.