filmmaker & artist

Arata Mori is a Japanese film director, editor, and artist based between Berlin and Tokyo. He is the graduate of Fine Art at Central Saint Martins in London and a recipient of the Asian Cultural Council’s Individual Fellowship. His creative practice spans across documentary film, television, experimental cinema, dance-theatre, and architecture.

 

In 2021, Mori directed “A Million”, a creative documentary and fictional travelogue set in an imaginary city projected onto real urban landscapes along China’s new Silk Road. The film premiered at the 64th DOK Leipzig.

 

In 2024, he co-directed the feature documentary “Johatsu – Into Thin Air” with German filmmaker Andreas Hartmann. The film explores Japan’s “Night Moving Companies,” which help people disappear. After its world premiere at Thessaloniki IDF, it screened at over 30 international film festivals, including CPH:DOX, Krakow, Shanghai IFF, Rio de Janeiro, and Encounters. It won the main award at DOK.fest Munich and had theatrical releases across Germany, London, and Hong Kong.

 

Mori is also the co-founder of another:, a creative video project with photographer Laurian Ghinitoiu. Collaborating with leading architects and artists such as BIG, OMA, SO-IL, and Shiota Chiharu, their 2023 film “veins” follows the journey of marble from a Portuguese quarry to New York, where it becomes the façade of the new Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center site.

 

As an editor and editing consultant, Mori has worked on numerous feature and short films, television documentaries, and commercial projects. His credits include Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese’s “Ancestral Visions of the Future” (Berlinale 2025) and “Mother, I Am Suffocating. This Is My Last Film About You” (Berlinale 2019).

 

He also works as a freelance director for Japanese broadcasters such as NHK and WOWOW, often placing himself in conflict zones and high-risk regions, including the Ukrainian border or Iran.