Karyn Kiyoko Kusama (born March 21, 1968)^[1] is an American filmmaker. She made her feature directorial debut with the sports drama film Girlfight (2000),^[2][3] for which she won Best Director and the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature.

Kusama went on to direct the science fiction action film Æon Flux (2005), based on the animated series of the same name created by Peter Chung, and the horror comedy film Jennifer's Body (2009). After working extensively in television,^[4] Kusama directed the horror film The Invitation (2015), a segment in the horror anthology film XX (2017), and the crime drama film Destroyer (2018). Kusama currently serves as an executive producer on the Showtime survival horror thriller series Yellowjackets (2021–present), for which she was nominated for two Primetime Emmy Awards.^[5]

Kusama was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Haruo Kusama, a Japanese child psychiatrist. He immigrated from Japan and attended the medical school of Washington University.  Kusama's mother, Susan McGuire, was an occupational therapist. She is of Scottish-Irish descent. Her father is Japanese American and her mother is Scots-Irish-American.^[6] Karyn grew up highly invested in the film industry and watching movies, she used it as an outlet to help her feel seen.^[7] Her love for filmmaking grew from the female directors, Martha Coolidge and Amy Heckerling, Directors of Valley Girl and Fast Time.^[8] She graduated from Ladue Horton Watkins High School in St. Louis. In 1990, she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film & Television from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. One of her professors at NYU, Carol Dysinger, admired her work and loved the way she told her story through filmmaking.^[9] Her jobs before making it big in the film industry varied from nannying, house painting, editing, and working with the production of independent films/ music videos.^[10] In 1992, after partnering with John Sayles as an assistant, she joined Gleason's Gym in Dumbo, Brooklyn where she started boxing. She used the fact that she was one of the few female boxers as inspiration for the film, "Girlfight" in 2000. She trained with a well known Spanish trainer, Hector Roca. ^[11]

Kusama's films have been noted for their strong feminist themes, and with the exception of The Invitation, all have featured female protagonists. They are often flawed, with the filmmaker citing an interest in ambiguity and difficulty in characters. Kusama has described herself as a "feminist unapologetically" and has criticized the barriers that women face in the film industry. In addition to themes of feminism, Kusama takes the time to investigate and understand the darker side of psychology for her characters. She highlights many of the negative emotions such as violence, loss, anxiety, and unrest. She ensures her work is in a realist direction and related to the viewers in an uncomfortable way. Kusama's works are represented in an externalizing direction where her character's emotions are channeled into physical actions.^[44]

Her interest in being a filmmaker comes from the "disparate elements" of art in storytelling from dialogue to music, and the opportunity that being a filmmaker allows in uniting these elements into a single vision. Kusama's films have often drawn upon and been influenced by her own experiences and connections. In her beginning years she was surrounded by people dying, drugs, violence, betrayal, and anger. She used all of these feelings to create tension and anxiety from the audience. Kusama also refuses to set aside roles for men, hence the feminism within her films.^[45]

Some of her films have been set in the city of Los Angeles. On the city's usage in The Invitation, Kusama said that despite the film being primarily set and shot in a single interior space it had to be set in Los Angeles due to the mythology and history of the city and the surrounding Southern California region. With Destroyer, she aimed to authentically depict parts of the city not often seen in popular culture, resulting in its location shooting going "off the beaten path." Many of Kusama's production designs are thought through in a more emotional way. She ensures that the lighting, color palette, and music are a direct reflection of her characters on screen. Since she has a dark overall theme for her films, many of her works have dim and darkened lights in terms of color and most of her tones are way below the audible ranges of her landscapes so in the final project they come off as vibratory in theater. Kusama has a love for the visual arts and detail. Her signature way of framing her shots help push along her themes of her stories. Ensuring she has a controlled aesthetic, she uses isolation techniques, dead spaces, and the camera to create personal feelings with her characters.  ^[46]

Kusama married screenwriter Phil Hay in October 2006. They have a son. Although they had known each other since meeting at Sundance when Girlfight premiered in 2000, it was not until they worked together on Æon Flux that they began dating.^[3]

Hay has co-written three of her films with his writing partner Matt Manfredi. Together the trio formed Familystyle Films,^[47] under which Destroyer was released.

Kusama has named Jonathan Glazer and Jacques Audiard as two current filmmakers who have influenced her.^[28] She also said Chantal Akerman's arthouse film Jeanne Dielman is one of her favorite female-directed films.^[48] Kusama was initially inspired to make films–particularly centered around women–by her viewings of Amy Heckerling's Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) as well as Martha Coolidge's Valley Girl (1983).

Film

• Girlfight (2000) (also writer)
• Æon Flux (2005)
• Jennifer's Body (2009)
• The Invitation (2015)
• Destroyer (2018)

Short film

Television