Movies: Naomi Kawase

From a vast record of 750 days, 5000 hours, Official Film of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 SIDE A and SIDE B are the official documentaries by Naomi Kawase capturing not only the athletes gathered from all over the world, but also their families, peop...

Naomi Kawase describes Sakura Ando, the lead character in her film, as "a mysterious creature" who is "like a fairy. SEED is the story of the journey this girl takes from the enchanted nature of Nara to the chaos of Tokyo, and the encounters she has ...

The song "Sakura Nagashi" by Hikaru Utada, reflects on themes of love, loss, and the beauty of fleeting moments. The opening lines describe cherry blossoms falling after just blooming, and the disappointment of witnessing their ephemeral nature. This...

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The sequel to Naomi Kawase's Katasumori. The film revisits Kawase’s relationship with her "grandma", capturing their love and attachment towards each other....

1988 short film...

The film takes shape through the form of a video exchange between Hirokazu Kore-eda and Naomi Kawase. Each films the world around them and intimately reflects on their individual struggles with making films. Kore-eda self-consciously reflects on his ...

Naomi Kawase goes to the south of Japan in search of her family origins on Amami Island, with her four-year-old son Mitsuki. They meet parents, chat with the island’s inhabitants, eat traditional goat soup, observe a total solar eclipse. By reconnect...

Naomi Kawase returns to the mountains of her feature film Suzaku and portraits the people that inspired the movie....

In the form of a fiction, Naomi Kawase delivers a self-portrait which is also a re-crossing of her earlier films. The old city of Nara, the first capital of Japan where Naomi Kawase is from and where she still lives, opens up a reverie where past, pr...

The last piece of the trilogy, following 'Katatsumori' and 'See Heaven', filming her grandma and herself. Her gazes and insights are cast on the lovable beings in front of her eyes....

1990 short film...

1989 short film...

From the music of Tunisian composer Amine Bouhafa, Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase crafts a story of two young people ruminating on existence and life in a city. This short film is part of the 2x25 Project of Film Fest Gent and the World Soundtrack A...

It tells how 14 characters travel in a mysterious vehicle that they cannot easily get out of. Along the way, they fabricate about their identity and travel through unreal landscapes on a journey between life and death, sleep and wakefulness. Accordin...

The exhibition 'The Complete Letters' features epistolary works defined by cinematographic creation. This is an experimental communication format used between pairs of film directors. Although each director is situated in a location geographically di...

Taichi, a security worker, meets a girl, Heki, at a bar. The next evening, he sees the beautiful view of his town for the first time in ages, and decides to take the long way home, where he runs into Heki again....

Naomi Kawase observes people in the city of Shibuya with curiosity and openness, drawing parallels between life and filmmaking and discovering her abilities as a filmmaker....

Kawase pays tribute to the grandmother that raised her after being separated from her parents as a child. The film teems with memories, but it is the faded, dusty photographs capturing the kindness in her grandmother’s shy smile that truly bring the ...

1989 short film....