An avid fan of film, she made her screen debut and appeared in the sequels of the Heisei era daikaiju eiga Gamera (1995–1999) series, after a chance meeting at a film festival with Director Shusuke Kaneko. She worked again with him on an episode he directed of Ultraman Max.
Along with Writer and Director Hideaki Anno, Ayako co-adapted her novella Touhimu (Flee-Dream) into the film Shiki-Jitsu in 2000. It was the first non-animated feature released by Studio Ghibli under the Studio Kajino label. She also stars in the title role. Shiki-Jitsu won the Artistic Award at the 30th Tokyo International Film Festival and showed at the Hong Kong International Film Festival.
Other film roles include parts in the French film Sansa (2003) and in Michel Gondry's "Interior Design" segment of Tokyo! (2008).
In 2006, she directed a short drama for TV Tokyo's Drama Factory program.
In 2014, Fujitani co-wrote a Ermenegildo Zegna-commissioned short film with Park Chan-wook, Chung Chung-hoon and Michael Werwie that Park also directed, and that Clint Mansell scored entitled A Rose Reborn starring Jack Huston and Daniel Wu.
She has been married to Javier Gullón since 2016.
