Mako Kamitsuna was born in Houston, Texas, and raised in Hiroshima, Japan. After earning a BA in Philosophy from Columbia University, she was admitted to the Graduate Film MFA program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her various shorts, including Betty Anderson (starring Tamlyn Tomita, Joy Luck Club) have toured international film festivals. An accomplished editor, Mako’s credits include Brooklyn Lobster (starring Danny Aiello, presented by Martin Scorsese), award-winning anti-nuclear documentary Original Child Bomb (IFC/Sundance), French Revolution (History Channel) and Inside The Taliban (National Geographic), among others.

In 2008, Mako edited a series of documentary projects including 2501 Migrants: The Journey, an intimate story of immigration told through an eye of a Mexican artist Alejandro Santiago; and 3 Billion and Counting, an investigative doc on controversial politics behind the banning of DDT in 1972. In 2009 she has completed I Want So Much To Live, a feature doc on the birth of a revolutionary cancer treatment. She is currently finishing editing Dee Rees’ feature Pariah, produced by Project:Involve Fellow Nekisa Cooper.

Also a writer-director in her own right, Mako is developing her original feature film From Here To Jacqueline (starring Virginie Ledoyen) with 2008 P:I fellow Michael Lopez; and Pearl (starring Mylne Jampanoi), a mythical thriller set in Japan.