Michael Tait

Editor, Creative Partnerships at The Guardian

Michael Tait is a multi-award winning cinema, television and internet film producer. Winner of the highly prestigious International Emmy Award for television, 5 Royal Television Awards and 5 Webby Awards for internet work. His current role at The Guardian is to seek new partnerships and collaborations for The Guardian to produce content in association with other platforms, broadcasters, public bodies and brands.

Michael is also a lifelong student and admirer of Japanese culture. He has studied Buddhism for 20 years under his teacher Gudo Nishijima Roshi and his dharma heir Michael Eido Luetchford. Recently he received 'shiho' - his name formally added to the lineage of teachers and a formal authorisation to teach Buddhism. Michael also studies and collects Japanese ceramics and has recently started learning the Tsugaru Shamisen and minyo songs.

Michael has been to Japan four times over the years for periods of months and travelled around the country. Amongst many other experiences, he has walked the Nakasendo Road, sat in rotemburo in the Iya Valley in Shikoku, taken tea in Ritsurin Tea House, practised zazen with the monks at Eihei-ji, eaten bee larvae in a Matsumoto ryokan and had a conversation about Scottish poet Robert Burns with a Japanese professor around the irori of a Momoyama house in Nagano. For a Westerner, he is immensely knowledgeable and relentlessly curious about Japan and its culture. His passion and commitment to the Japanese nation and its people are unmatched in the United Kingdom.