Graduating from the
University of Tokyo, where he studied
French literature, Yoshida entered the
Shōchiku studio in 1955 and worked as an assistant to
Keisuke Kinoshita, before debuting as a director in 1960 with
Rokudenashi. He was a central member of what came to be called the "Shōchiku Nouvelle Vague" along with
Nagisa Oshima and
Masahiro Shinoda, and his works have been studied under the larger rubric of the
Japanese New Wave, a linkage which Yoshida himself disliked. Two years later, his film
Wuthering Heights would compete for the
Golden Palm at the
1988 Festival. In 2002,
Women in the Mirror followed after another hiatus of 14 years. In addition to his theatrical films, Yoshida directed a series of documentaries for Japanese TV. Yoshida named European cinema as a great influence on his work, most notably the directors
Ingmar Bergman and
Michelangelo Antonioni, and pre-war French films like the works of
Jean Renoir. ==Selected filmography==