Hideho Urata

History

Originally from Japan, Hideho Urata began his career in the United States. A feature film he lensed, KAMATAKI (2005), won five awards at the Montréal World Film Festival 2005, and the Crystal Bear-Special Mention at the Berlin International Film Festival 2006. He won Best Cinematography at Montreal's Fantasia International Film Festival 2009 and Best Visual Achievement at the New York Asian Film Festival 2009 for his work on THE CLONE RETURNS HOME (2008). Hideho’s latest feature film in Singapore, A LAND IMAGINED (2018) won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival 2018, and he also won Valladolid International Film Festival - Seminci for Best Cinematography and Asian Pacific Screen Award for Achievement of Cinematography for his work in A LAND IMAGINED (2018).

Movies

Plan 75

Director of Photography

In a Japan of the near future, the government program Plan 75 encourages senior citizens to be voluntarily euthanized to remedy a super-aged society. An elderly woman whose means of survival are vanishing, a pragmatic Plan 75 salesman, and a young Filipino laborer face choices of life and death.

A Land Imagined

Director of Photography

A cop in Singapore investigates the disappearance of a Chinese migrant construction worker who spent sleepless nights playing a mysterious video game.

Sanjay

Director of Photography

Sanjay and his wife, Divya, have recently moved to Singapore from India. In the face of an impending cutback by his company management, Sanjay struggles to juggle work and adjust to life in Singapore. How will they fare in such a trying scenario?

Lizard on the Wall

Director of Photography

Inspired by the first English-language novel "Inheritance" of acclaimed Singaporean novelist Balli Kaur Jaswal about Singapore's Punjabi-Sikh diaspora, the film surrounds the story of a Punjabi family and the characters' struggles against traditions and belonging. The project involves the local Punjabi community, who has often been left out of the larger Singaporean narrative even when they are such an important part of our cultural landscape.

The Day I Lost My Shadow

Director of Photography

A trilogy set in three iconic locations within Singapore's Little India district: Race Course Road, Campbell Lane and Syed Alwi Road. The notion of re-examining history by truth and myth through visual storytelling serves as the inter-connecting thread between the three short films, and the films offer glimpses of Little India through the 19th and 20th centuries.

Parting

Director of Photography

the meaning of style

Cinematography

Shot with Malaysian skinheads in Penang, it’s a meditative fantasy on signs, signals and butterflies, leading to pointed reflections on the relationship between British colonial history and popular culture in South-East Asia

The Clone Returns Home

Director of Photography

Kohei Takahara, an astronaut who dies in the line of duty, is legally resurrected as a clone: however, contrary to the scientists’ expectations, he reverts to his childhood memories when his twin brother drowned sacrificing his life for Kohei. Kohei’s clone discovers the body of his former self mistakenly believing that it is his deceased twin. Reliving his tragic past, he sets off carrying his corpse body to the beautiful hometown where he lived with his now dead mother.

Celebrate Cinema 101

Director

This film project was made in 1996 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the cinema.