Umi Ishihara is a London- and Tokyo-based artist and filmmaker. She creates experimental narrative films and video installations that connect personal memory with social realities, centering the lived histories of marginalized communities. Raised by parents working in Japan’s nightclubs and free-rave scenes, Ishihara developed a focus on portraying communities that exist outside dominant social structures. She often collaborates with non-professional actors, local residents, and people from her immediate surroundings, creating unscripted and grassroots narratives grounded in collective experience.