Chris Tashima

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BIOGRAPHY 

Chris Tashima is a Los Angeles based filmmaker and actor. He won an Academy Award® for directing the short film, Visas and Virtue, in which he also stars as Holocaust rescuer Chiune Sugihara. He directed and co-wrote Day of Independence, another short film, in tribute to the 120,000 Japanese Americans confined to concentration camps in the U.S. during WWII. The narrative drama earned a NATAS Regional EMMY® nomination and was selected to over 60 film festivals, winning 25 awards.

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An award-winning actor, Chris has enjoyed a 40-year career appearing in Asian American indie features and short films. He played the romantic lead opposite Joan Chen in Eric Byler’s Americanese, which won a Special Jury Prize for Outstanding Ensemble Cast at SXSW. He received multiple Best Actor awards for Jeffrey Gee Chin’s dramatic short, Lil Tokyo Reporter. His performance in Tim Savage’s Under the Blood Red Sun won Best Supporting Actor at Love International Film Festival. At Austin Revolution Film Festival Chris was nominated as Best Actor for Paul Daisuke Goodman’s No No Girl.

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Community honors Chris has received have come from The “1939” Club, East West Players, JACCC, Japanese American Service Committee, A. Magazine, JACL, Pacific Citizen, APEX, JABA, Hollywood Silver Screen Festival, and Asian Hustle Network. Chris also had the honor of throwing out the First Pitch at Dodger Stadium on Japanese American Community Night.

 

He belongs to the DGA, serving over 20 years on the Guild’s Asian American Committee.

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Chris has served as many years on the Asian Pacific American Media Committee of SAG-AFTRA. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, where he was recently elected Governor of the Short Films Branch, and serves on the Academy’s Equity and Inclusion Committee. Follow Chris on IG: @christashima

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