Naomi Kawase

Naomi Kawase, 2014

Naomi Kawase ( Japanese 河 瀬 直 美 , Kawase Naomi ; born May 30, 1969 in Nara , Nara Prefecture ) is a Japanese film director .

Life

Kawase studied film at the Osaka Visual Arts University . During her studies and also after she finished it in 1989, she made several experimental short films and documentaries. In most of these early films she dealt with the topic of family and processed her own experiences. The director was abandoned by her parents and grew up with her grandparents. In Your Arms from 1992 shows how Kawase tries to find her father again. She also addressed the relationship with her father in a later documentary film: Around Me Stille (2001).

Kawase, who wrote the scripts for all of her films herself, made her feature film debut in 1996 with Moe no Suzaku . Cinematographer Masaki Tamura suggested the project to the producers because he was impressed by the director's 8mm work . The 35mm film was shown at numerous film festivals and won several international awards, such as the FIPRESCI award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and the Golden Camera , an award for the best first feature, at the Cannes International Film Festival .

The film Hotaru (2000) earned her the FIPRESCI Prize at the Locarno International Film Festival . This was followed in 2002 by the documentary Dance of Memory , in which Kawase regularly visited the well-known photographer Kazuo Nishii, who suffered from stomach cancer, until his death.

Shara was screened in competition at the Cannes International Film Festival in 2003. The drama is about a boy who disappears without a trace and how his family copes with it. Years later, the boy's parents and twin brother find out what happened.

In   2007 she was again represented in the competition at the 60th Cannes International Film Festival with the feature film The Forest of Mourning . For this work Naomi Kawase was awarded the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes . The film is about a carer - played by Machiko Ono , who had already taken on a role in Moe no Suzaku - and her relationship with the person she looks after in a retirement home in a mountain area.

For Hanezu no Tsuki , Kawase received another invitation to compete at the 64th Cannes International Film Festival in 2011 . Two years later she was appointed to the competition jury at the 66th Cannes Film Festival .

Her feature film Still the Water (Futatsume No Mado) , a co-production with Arte France Cinéma , was also shown in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2014 and won the main prize at the International Women's Film Festival in Dortmund in 2015 .

In 2016 she was selected as the jury president of the short film jury and the Cinéfondation series at the 69th Cannes International Film Festival . A year later she was invited for the fifth time in the competition for the Golden Palm for Hikari (English-language festival title: Radiance ). The love drama is about an audio description writer (played by Ayame Misaki ) who falls in love with a blind photographer ( Masatoshi Nagase ).

Filmography (selection)

• 1992: In your arms ( に つ つ ま れ て , Ni tsutsumarete )
• 1994: Katatsumori ( か た つ も り )
• 1996: Arawashi yo ( 現 し よ )
• 1996: Moe no Suzaku ( 萌 の 朱雀 )
• 1998: Somaudo Monogatari ( 杣 人 物語 )
• 1999: Mangekyō ( 万 華 鏡 )
• 2000: Hotaru ( 火 垂 )
• 2001: Silence around me ( き ゃ か ら ば あ , Kya ka ra ba a )
• 2002: Dance of Memory ( 追 臆 の ダ ン ス , Tsuioku no Dansu )
• 2003: Shara - light and shadow ( 沙羅 双樹 , Sarasōju )
• 2006: Tarashime - Birth and Motherhood ( 垂 乳 根 , Tarachine )
• 2007: The Forest of Mourning ( 殯 の 森 , Mogari no Mori )
• 2008: Sekaiju ga watashi o suki dattara Ii no ni (If Only the Whole World Loved Me)
• 2010: Genpin ( 玄 牝 - げ ん ぴ ん - )
• 2011: Hanezu no Tsuki
• 2014: Still the Water ( ２ つ 目 の 窓 , Futatsume no mado )
• 2015: cherry blossoms and red beans ( あ ん , An )
• 2017: Radiance ( Hikari , 光 )
• 2018: The Bloom of Harmony (Vision)

Web links

• Official website of Naomi Kawase (English)
• Naomi Kawase in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Kawase Naomi. ( Memento from January 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) In: Hanami Web (English)
• “You can't just forget.” In: Der Standard , October 18, 2001, interview

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Suzaku. In: Votivkino Wien , 1997.
2. ↑ The Forest of Sorrows. ( Memento of the original from April 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Cannes on arte , May 9, 2011.
3. ↑ Brigitte Siegrist: Hanezu no tsuki. In: trigon-film
4. ↑ Olivier Père: Cannes 2014, Day 7: “Still The Water” by Naomi Kawase. ( Memento of the original from April 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: arte , May 20, 2014.
5. ↑ Kai-Uwe Brinkmann: "Still The Water": Japanese Kawase wins women's film festival. In: Münsterlandzeitung , April 19, 2015.