Jean Sadao (real name Koji Geronazzo Ogawa) expresses himself through an artistic production that combines cinema, theater, performance, video art and sound installations. At the center of his research, there is the investigation about identity in connection with today's society, in which the individual must relate, face and adapt to ever-faster transformations. In a globalized scenario he observes with particular attention the nodal point of the connection between our original natural surroundings and the current urbanized and technological ones, also read as the relationship between tradition and past, present and future, between East and West, in a perspective that in a certain way abstracts itself from the immediate, through a broad, overall vision, from above, sometimes employing surreal and symbolic images or compositions that can be read as a sort of visual alphabet.
Born and raised in Italy, he holds an MA in Oriental Languages and Civilities in Venice with a thesis degree on 1960s Japanese avant-garde artist Natsuyuki Nakanishi. During these years he was involved as a technical assistant in many International film productions (007 Casino Royale, The Italian Job, Lasse Hallstrom's "Casanova", etc.)
In 2009 he moved to Japan and after a short period where he reviewed films for the commission of the 22nd Tokyo International Film Festival's final selection, in 2010 he taught “Basis of Design” in Filmmaking at the movie department of Vantan Design Institute of Tokyo.
In 2011 he founded an independent video production company specialized in producing experimental films (other than commercials, music videos, and Tv documentaries becoming a landmark in Tokyo for Italian productions involving personalities of the likes of dancer Roberto Bolle, tenor Andrea Bocelli, and many others).
In the same year, after the disaster of Fukushima, he was assistant to Japanese director Ryuichi Hiroki in making charity short films.
His early experimental works have been featured in various film festivals such as Uppsala International Short-film Festival, Sweden; Traverse Video, Lyon, France; Kurzfilmwoche, Regensburg, Germany; while the latter, presented both in film festivals and exhibitions (most recent and relevant "LINKS" at Etherea Art Gallery in Genoa, Italy), move towards an approach closer to video art.
In 2023 he debuted as a director of avant-garde theater based on the totality of the arts with the work “Verme Lunatico” presented at the MAIIIM (Museum of Art of the Third Millennium) in Genoa together with the performer Massimiliano Balduzzi.
Currently, after living for 10 years in Tokyo, he has returned to Italy, to Milan where he lives and works.