Imamura is a Japanese director and screenwriter. He studied Western history at the Waseda University in Tokyo, but spent a lot of time writing plays and directing them in the theatre. After graduating in 1951, he started his film career working as an assistant director to Yasujiro Ozu on his films Early Summer (Bakushū, 1951), The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice (Ochazuke no aji, 1952) and Tokyo Story (Tōkyō monogatari, 1953). In 1954, he left Shochiku and joined the Nikkatsu film studio and worked as assistant director to Yuzo Kawashima. He made his directing debut with the film Stolen Desire (Nusumareta yokujo, 1958), already hinting at some of the topics that were to become central to his later films. He then made three films for Nikkatsu, but managed to put his own stamp on them by emphasizing society’s lower classes, which became a focus of his later films. The studio was dissatisfied with the film Pigs and Battleships (Buta to gunkan, 1961) and thought it was anti-American, so he did not work for the next two years. His next films, The Insect Woman (Nippon konchûki, 1963) and Intentions of Murder (Akai satsui, 1964), also done in his characteristic style, helped him secure his position as the leading director of the Japanese New Wave. In 1965, he founded his own production house Imamura Productions and made The Pornographers (Erogotoshi-tachi yori: Jinruigaku nyûmon, 1966). After the commercially unsuccessful drama Profound Desires of the Gods (Kamigami no Fukaki Yokubo, 1968), he spent the rest of the 1980s filming documentaries and low-budget films. For his crime drama Vengeance is Mine (Fukushû suru wa ware ni ari, 1979) he received the award from the Japanese Film Academy for Best Film and Best Director. His drama Narayama-bushi-ko (The Ballad of Narayama, 1983) in Cannes in 1983. Black Rain (Kuroi ame, 1989) brought him another award from the Japanese Film Academy for Best Film and Best Director in 1990, and The Eel (Unagi, 1997) won another Golden Palm in Cannes (together with Ta'm e guilass by Abbas Kiarostami). His last two films are Dr. Akagi (Kanzo sense, 1998) and Warm Water Under a Red Bridge (Akai hashi no shita no nurui mizu, 2001).