Synopsis
On the subtropical Japanese island of Amami, traditions about nature remain eternal. Following a typhoon and during the full-moon night of traditional dances in August, 16-year-old Kaito (Nijirô Murakami) discovers a dead body floating in the sea. His girlfriend, Kyoko (Junko Abe), will attempt to help him understand this mysterious discovery. Together, Kaito and Kyoko will learn to become adults by experiencing the interwoven cycles of life, death and love.
Kawase, one of Japan’s most celebrated contemporary directors and the youngest filmmaker to be awarded the Cannes Camera d’Or for her debut film “Suzaku” in 1987, was nominated for a Palme d’Or for Still The Water; the film also captured awards for Best Director and Best Cinematography at the 2015 RiverRun International Film Festival.
Director’S Bio: Naomi Kawase
Born and raised in Nara, Kawase graduated from Visual Arts Osaka in 1989. Her films, “Embracing” (1992) and “Katatsumori” (1994) received international...
On the subtropical Japanese island of Amami, traditions about nature remain eternal. Following a typhoon and during the full-moon night of traditional dances in August, 16-year-old Kaito (Nijirô Murakami) discovers a dead body floating in the sea. His girlfriend, Kyoko (Junko Abe), will attempt to help him understand this mysterious discovery. Together, Kaito and Kyoko will learn to become adults by experiencing the interwoven cycles of life, death and love.
Kawase, one of Japan’s most celebrated contemporary directors and the youngest filmmaker to be awarded the Cannes Camera d’Or for her debut film “Suzaku” in 1987, was nominated for a Palme d’Or for Still The Water; the film also captured awards for Best Director and Best Cinematography at the 2015 RiverRun International Film Festival.
Director’S Bio: Naomi Kawase
Born and raised in Nara, Kawase graduated from Visual Arts Osaka in 1989. Her films, “Embracing” (1992) and “Katatsumori” (1994) received international...
- 2/10/2023
- by Suzie Cho
- AsianMoviePulse
Festival
Japanese director Kawase Naomi will lead the international competition jury of the 44th Cairo International Film Festival (Nov. 13-22).
Kawase won the Caméra d’Or for best debut feature film at Cannes for “Moe no Suzaku” (1997) and also won awards there for “Mogari no Mori” (2007) and “Hikari” (2017). In 2000, her film “Hotaru” won the Fipresci award at Locarno.
Cairo festival president Hussein Fahmy said that Kawase has had a distinguished career and possesses great experience that qualified her to obtain prestigious awards from various international festivals.
Festival director Amir Ramses added that the presence of an award-winning female director with such a successful career and rich filmography is a great inspiration to female filmmakers in Egypt.
Solidarity
The International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk (Icfr) has declared solidarity with all those in Iran who stand up for their basic human rights and the freedom of expression.
“This is a revolution...
Japanese director Kawase Naomi will lead the international competition jury of the 44th Cairo International Film Festival (Nov. 13-22).
Kawase won the Caméra d’Or for best debut feature film at Cannes for “Moe no Suzaku” (1997) and also won awards there for “Mogari no Mori” (2007) and “Hikari” (2017). In 2000, her film “Hotaru” won the Fipresci award at Locarno.
Cairo festival president Hussein Fahmy said that Kawase has had a distinguished career and possesses great experience that qualified her to obtain prestigious awards from various international festivals.
Festival director Amir Ramses added that the presence of an award-winning female director with such a successful career and rich filmography is a great inspiration to female filmmakers in Egypt.
Solidarity
The International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk (Icfr) has declared solidarity with all those in Iran who stand up for their basic human rights and the freedom of expression.
“This is a revolution...
- 10/12/2022
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
“True Mothers” by Kawase Naomi has been selected as Japan’s nominee for a best international feature film Academy Award. The Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan, which supervises the selection process, made the announcement on Thursday.
Based on a novel by Tsujimura Miyuki, film focuses on a couple (Nagasaku Hiromi and Iura Arata) who adopt a child and, years later, are asked by its birth mother to return it.
A Cannes label selection, the film premiered at Toronto. It opened on Oct. 23 for commercial release in Japan.
The last Japanese film to be a finalist in the international film Oscar competition was Koreeda Hirokazu’s “Shoplifters” in 2019. Takita Yojiro ‘s “Departures” is the only Japanese film to win the award, in 2009.
“The director’s contemplation of motherhood and adoption (…) is her most plot-driven but least visually lustrous film yet,” wrote Variety in its review of the film. “Resembling the relationship-based ‘Sweet Bean,...
Based on a novel by Tsujimura Miyuki, film focuses on a couple (Nagasaku Hiromi and Iura Arata) who adopt a child and, years later, are asked by its birth mother to return it.
A Cannes label selection, the film premiered at Toronto. It opened on Oct. 23 for commercial release in Japan.
The last Japanese film to be a finalist in the international film Oscar competition was Koreeda Hirokazu’s “Shoplifters” in 2019. Takita Yojiro ‘s “Departures” is the only Japanese film to win the award, in 2009.
“The director’s contemplation of motherhood and adoption (…) is her most plot-driven but least visually lustrous film yet,” wrote Variety in its review of the film. “Resembling the relationship-based ‘Sweet Bean,...
- 10/30/2020
- by Mark Schilling
- Variety Film + TV
Cannes Film Festival’s regular Naomi Kawase will not see her new movie “True Mothers” screened there this year unfortunately, despite being added to the list of 2020 Official Selections, and we will not be able to see it in theatres for a while either, for reasons that we all know, but it will probably be present in many line-ups of the new post-summer round of Festivals.
Synopsis
Based on Mizuki Tsujimura’s novel of the same name, “True Mothers” follows the story of Kiyokazu Kurihara and Satoko, a married couple struggling with infertility and trying every medical help in order to conceive biologically. However, after a long stream of unsuccessful attempts, the couple decides to adopt the child Asato instead. Then, six years later a woman comes into their lives and introduces herself as Hikari Katakura, She claims to be Asato’s biological mother and extorts them for money.
The film stars Arata Iura,...
Synopsis
Based on Mizuki Tsujimura’s novel of the same name, “True Mothers” follows the story of Kiyokazu Kurihara and Satoko, a married couple struggling with infertility and trying every medical help in order to conceive biologically. However, after a long stream of unsuccessful attempts, the couple decides to adopt the child Asato instead. Then, six years later a woman comes into their lives and introduces herself as Hikari Katakura, She claims to be Asato’s biological mother and extorts them for money.
The film stars Arata Iura,...
- 6/19/2020
- by Adriana Rosati
- AsianMoviePulse
Last year’s winner was Léonor Serraille’s Montparnasse Bienvenüe.
Swiss filmmaker Ursula Meier has been named president of the Caméra d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival (May 8-19).
Meier and the jury will award a prize to a director’s first work from the Official Selection, the Directors’ Fortnight or Critics’ Week.
Her work includes Home (2008), Sister (2012), which won the Silver Bear at the Berlinale, and Shock Waves - Diary of My Mind (2018). In 2014 she took part in Bridges of Sarajevo, a collective work by 13 European filmmakers presented at Cannes in the Official Selection.
The jury will present...
Swiss filmmaker Ursula Meier has been named president of the Caméra d’Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival (May 8-19).
Meier and the jury will award a prize to a director’s first work from the Official Selection, the Directors’ Fortnight or Critics’ Week.
Her work includes Home (2008), Sister (2012), which won the Silver Bear at the Berlinale, and Shock Waves - Diary of My Mind (2018). In 2014 she took part in Bridges of Sarajevo, a collective work by 13 European filmmakers presented at Cannes in the Official Selection.
The jury will present...
- 3/27/2018
- by Orlando Parfitt
- ScreenDaily
The latest installment in the filmmaker's series of journal-films combining iPhone footage and sounds and images from movies. A diary penned with cinema.Journal (6.6.16 - 1.10.17)feat. additional footage from Masha Tupitsyn and Isiah MedinaMy journal-film series (of which this is the third installment) came to be as a means of resolving the points of convergence and departure amongst the environments I occupy and those which I encounter in cinema. I like to view these films as a method of managing the images that take up my thoughts and memories into a new continuity, one in which the distinction between images seen on-screen and those personally experienced is no longer absolute. In dissolving this partition, these films provide a vector for the animation conceptual concerns through cinema - montage fulfilling that which language can only formally describe and vice versa. The following essay outlines some of the concerns this film attempts...
- 3/20/2017
- MUBI
The three-time Palme d’Or nominated director will present the awards at the festival’s closing ceremony on May 22.
Naomi Kawase, who opened the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes last year with An, will return for the 69th edition of the festival (May 11-22) as president of the Cinefondation and Shorts jury.
The director has a long history with Cannes. Her debut feature Suzaku (Moe No Suzaku) won the Camera d’or in 1997, and she has since been nominated for the Palme d’Or three times, winning the Jury Grand Prize for 2007’s The Mourning Forest.
Kawase follows directors including Abderrahmane Sissako, Abbas Kiarostami, Jane Campion, Michel Gondry, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Martin Scorsese to take on the role.
The Cinéfondation and Short Films jury will award three prizes to films submitted by film schools to the Cinéfondation Selection, as well as the Short Film Palme d’Or – to be presented during the festival’s closing...
Naomi Kawase, who opened the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes last year with An, will return for the 69th edition of the festival (May 11-22) as president of the Cinefondation and Shorts jury.
The director has a long history with Cannes. Her debut feature Suzaku (Moe No Suzaku) won the Camera d’or in 1997, and she has since been nominated for the Palme d’Or three times, winning the Jury Grand Prize for 2007’s The Mourning Forest.
Kawase follows directors including Abderrahmane Sissako, Abbas Kiarostami, Jane Campion, Michel Gondry, Hou Hsiao-hsien and Martin Scorsese to take on the role.
The Cinéfondation and Short Films jury will award three prizes to films submitted by film schools to the Cinéfondation Selection, as well as the Short Film Palme d’Or – to be presented during the festival’s closing...
- 3/15/2016
- ScreenDaily
BEIJING -- The influence of Asia will be felt from the moment Wong Kar Wai's My Blueberry Nights lights the opening-night screen Wednesday at the 60th edition of the Festival de Cannes.
Shot in the U.S., the Hong Kong director's English-language debut stars Jude Law and features the acting debut of singer Norah Jones. It joins three other Asian films in the official selection at Cannes.
"There is definitely some kind of love affair between Cannes and Asian cinema," said Christine Pernin, chief China representative of Unifrance, the French government's cultural envoy.
Also In Competition is Breath, the 14th film by Kim Ki-duk, one of South Korea's biggest names on the international film festival circuit. Breath stars Taiwanese actor Chang Chen as a man awaiting execution who falls for a betrayed wife.
Also from Korea is Secret Sunshine, by Lee Chang-dong, a former minister of culture and tourism and one of Korea's most respected filmmakers. Lee's 2002 film Oasis -- about a social misfit who falls in love with a woman with cerebral palsy -- won the FIPRESCI prize and Marcello Mastroianni awards at Venice.
In Secret Sunshine, Lee again tackles a challenging subject, the story of a grieving widow who travels to her late husband's hometown only to find that her newfound religious faith fails her when she is struck by another tragedy.
The lone Japanese entry In Competition comes from director Naomi Kawase, who, at 27, won the Camera d'Or at Cannes in 1997 for her first feature film, Moe No Suzaku. Kawase is back this year with Mogari No Mori (The Mourning Forest).
Shot in the U.S., the Hong Kong director's English-language debut stars Jude Law and features the acting debut of singer Norah Jones. It joins three other Asian films in the official selection at Cannes.
"There is definitely some kind of love affair between Cannes and Asian cinema," said Christine Pernin, chief China representative of Unifrance, the French government's cultural envoy.
Also In Competition is Breath, the 14th film by Kim Ki-duk, one of South Korea's biggest names on the international film festival circuit. Breath stars Taiwanese actor Chang Chen as a man awaiting execution who falls for a betrayed wife.
Also from Korea is Secret Sunshine, by Lee Chang-dong, a former minister of culture and tourism and one of Korea's most respected filmmakers. Lee's 2002 film Oasis -- about a social misfit who falls in love with a woman with cerebral palsy -- won the FIPRESCI prize and Marcello Mastroianni awards at Venice.
In Secret Sunshine, Lee again tackles a challenging subject, the story of a grieving widow who travels to her late husband's hometown only to find that her newfound religious faith fails her when she is struck by another tragedy.
The lone Japanese entry In Competition comes from director Naomi Kawase, who, at 27, won the Camera d'Or at Cannes in 1997 for her first feature film, Moe No Suzaku. Kawase is back this year with Mogari No Mori (The Mourning Forest).
- 5/16/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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