Kayo Hatta

Kayo Hatta (March 18, 1958 – July 20, 2005) was an Asian American filmmaker, writer, and community activist. She directed and co-wrote the independent dramatic feature-length film Picture Bride, which won the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award in 1995 for Best Dramatic Film.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Hatta grew up in New York. She graduated from Stanford University and obtained a master's degree in film from UCLA.

Picture Bride was an Official Selection at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section, and received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for best first film. Distributed worldwide by Miramax, the film was praised for its authenticity (including extensive use of Hawaiian pidgin dialogue), and continues to be used in the curriculum at a number of Hawaii universities and schools.

While at UCLA, she began Picture Bride as a short film, but felt the material deserved to be feature length. Hatta describes the long process of developing and finding financing for the film on the DVD version of Picture Bride, released by Miramax Home Entertainment, in 2004. The DVD includes a "making of" documentary featuring an extensive interview with Hatta and cast members, archival historical footage, and behind-the-scenes clips from the movie set. She recounts how the film encountered many technical difficulties during production, and ran out of funding halfway through the shooting. However, the lead actress, Japanese star Youki Kudoh, was able to make phone calls from the set to convince a Japanese lingerie company, for whom she had modeled, to buy the Japanese rights to the film, and production was able to continue. Hatta was also able to enlist the participation of a number of other established actors, such as legendary Japanese actor Toshirō Mifune, and Tamlyn Tomita.

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