Naomi Kawase

Beyond the Fog (2023)

A quiet hamlet hidden in the remote mountains village of Japan. In this hamlet once lively with hikers and shops, we meet Ihika, a 12-year-old born into a family that has run an inn for generations. Her father has been living apart for a few years. Saki, I ...

Official Film of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Side B (2022)

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, people inv ...

Official Film of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Side A (2022)

Follows Japanese director Naomi Kawase as she directs the official film of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, giving a message that goes beyond the physical exploit to mark souls, with her style and all her subtlety. ...

To The Future (2021)

Through this short film directed by Naomi Kawase you will witness the expressiveness of students and interviews with educators from Waldorf school's throughout Japan. ...

Tracing Her Shadow (2021)

An old Chinese woman visits Japan to find her missing daughter whom she adopted in post-WWII China. Her granddaughter and a retired Japanese policeman join her search. ...

True Mothers (2020)

After suffering through a long and unsuccessful series of fertility treatments, Satoko and her husband Kiyokazu make the decision to adopt a child. Six years after adopting a boy they named Asato, Satoko has quit her job to concentrate fully on her husband ...

The Nikaidos' Fall (2019)

After losing his son, Tatsuya is anguished by the danger of his ancient family line coming to an end. His mother Haru urges him to embark on a loveless second marriage, and meanwhile he secretly hopes that his daughter Yoshiko will marry a husband willing ...

The Moon (2018)

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, present ...

Vision (2018)

Centres on Jeanne, a journalist tracking a mysterious rare herb that appears only once every 997 years. ...

Parallel World (2018)

Toru revisits the astronomical observatory in his old school for the first time in 15 years. He finds a notebook in the room that remained unchanged and frozen in time. "Thanks for watching me." It was a message from Shinya, a member of the school dance cl ...

Cinema Fighters (2018)

Six stories based on six songs, the first project of Cinema Fighters. ...

Where Does the Sand Go? (2017)

A film-within-a-film from Kawase's "Radiance" (2017). The film depicts a man who is obsessed with the woman of his destiny and clings to the past, and his wife who suffers from dementia. ...

Radiance (2017)

The story follows the social intercourse between a cameraman, Masaya, with a visual impairment, and Misako who disconnects from the world. ...

Lies (2016)

This is the story about the life and artistic views of a designer through an interview that's replete with poetic dialogue. ...

A Midsummer's Fantasia (2015)

Reality and fantasy melds as a Korean documentary film director attempts to capture life in the small town of Gojo, Japan. ...

Sweet Bean (2015)

The master of a dorayaki pastry store hires a 76-year-old woman whose talents attract customers from all over. But she's hiding a troubling secret. Life's joys are found in the little details, and no matter what may be weighing you down, everyone loves a g ...

Still the Water (2014)

On the Japanese island of Amami, despite lacking parental guidance, Kaito and his girlfriend Kyoko try to find their place in the world. While Kaito suffers from the absence of his father, who moved to Tokyo after his birth, Kyoko must come to grips with h ...

Hikaru Utada: Sakura Nagashi (2012)

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 could ...

Trace (2012)

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 woman ...

Inori (2012)

Director Pedro came to Japan in April 2011, started shooting in the village Totsukawa of Nara Prefecture. ...

Hanezu (2012)

Woodwork artist Takumi moves to the small village Asuka in Nara Prefecture. He remodels old homes and lives a peaceful existence with nature. Takumi then meets Kayoko, a woman who went to the same school as Takumi. Kayoko is fascinated with the color crims ...

60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero (2011)

An anthology of one-minute films created by 51 international filmmakers on the theme of the death of cinema. Intended as an ode to 35mm, the film was screened one time only on a purpose-built 20x12 meter public cinema screen in the Port of Tallinn, Estonia ...

3.11 A Sense of Home Films (2011)

In memory of the Japanese earthquake on 3.11, each director presents a 3 minute and 11 second short film in tribute to those who were lost that day. ...

Genpin (2010)

About Tadashi Yoshimura's maternity clinic where he practice "natural births" deep in the forest of Okazaki (Japan). ...

Visitors (2009)

Hong Sang-Soo's Lost in the Mountains (South Korea, 32min) the visitor is the supremely self-centred Mi-Sook, who drives to Jeonju on impulse to see her classmate Jin-Young – only to discover that her friend is having an affair with their married profess ...

Haiku (2009)

Kawase's entry in the Haiku project ...

Cinematic Correspondences: Isaki Lacuesta - Naomi Kawase (2009)

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 distant ...

Nanayo (2008)

Saiko travels to Thailand but she jumps out of the cab after knowing the driver's intentions. However, her life changes after she meets Greg. ...

The Mourning Forest (2007)

A young woman working at a retirement home takes an elderly man living there on an excursion into the countryside, but the two wind up stranded in the titular forest. ...

Birth/Mother (2006)

Tarachime is a documentary film which observes 'life' through childbirth. Kawase Naomi, a film director working under the theme of family, life and death, presents the bond of life through her own childbirth experience. "First, I was planning to film from ...

Shara (2003)

The Aso family live in the old town of Nara. One Day, Kei, one of the Aso's twin boys suddenly disappears. Five years later seventeen-year old Shun, the remaining twin, is an art student. He now has to move forward with his life, together with his childhoo ...

Letter from a Yellow Cherry Blossom (2002)

Naomi Kawase's documentary about Nishii Kazuo, a photo critic. He is the last chief editor for the Camera Mainichi magazine, rushing through his time with Araki Nobuyoshi and Moriyama Daido as provocative artists in the photograph world. ...

Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth (2001)

Kawase tries to come to terms with her late father, whom she never knew when growing up, and contemplates getting a tattoo like his. ...

Firefly (2001)

Emotionally withdrawn strip club dancer Ayako has never recovered from her mother's suicide when she was young. She begins a relationship with patient potter Daiji, but leaves him behind when she quits her job and returns to her home town after a 10 year a ...

Kaleidoscope (1999)

A photographer and a filmmaker challenge each other to shoot—one to photograph the other to film—two young actresses, one from Tokyo, the other from the countryside. The photographer seeks naturalism in his compositions, and Kawase observes and comment ...

The Weald (1998)

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

Suzaku (1997)

Depicts the life of a family in a remote Japanese timber village. Family head Tahara Kozo lives with his mother Sachiko, wife Yasuyo, nephew Eisuke and young daughter Michiru. Economic recession and failed development plans cause tragedy in the family. ...

Sun on the Horizon (1996)

The last piece of Naomi Kawase's Grandmother Trilogy, following Katatsumori (1994) and See Heaven (1995), filming her grandma and herself. Her gazes and insights are cast on the lovable beings in front of her eyes. ...

This World (A Correspondence Between Naomi Kawase and Hirokazu Koreeda) (1996)

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 proces ...

Memory of the Wind (1995)

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. ...

See Heaven (1995)

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

Katatsumori (1994)

Filmmaker Naomi Kawase captures the love, loss, and loneliness felt as she prepares to move out of her foster mother's home. ...

White Moon (1993)

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. ...

Embracing (1992)

A diary film about Kawase's relationship with her grandma and her search for her father, whom she has not seen since her parents divorced during her early childhood. ...

Like Happiness (1991)

1991 short film ...

The Girls' Daily Bread (1990)

1990 short film ...

My Sole Family (1989)

1989 short film ...

A Small Largeness (1989)

1989 short film. ...

Presently, (1989)

1989 short film ...

The Concretization of These Things Flying Around Me (1988)

1988 film. ...

Papa's Ice Cream (1988)

1988 short film ...

My J-W-F (1988)

1988 short film ...

I Focus on That Which Interests Me (1988)

Kawase's debut film, shot after a fateful encounter with an 8mm film camera. The sturdy frame honestly reflects what the photographer sees and feels. The photographs were not of any particular interest, but rather of ordinary scenes and happenings; "everyt ...

The Wolf, the Fox, and the Leopard (2026)

When a girl raised by wolves is found in the woods, she must learn to forge her own path as those around her try to exploit her for their own purposes. ...

Emergency Exit (2025)

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. According to t ...

Missing Pictures (2021)

For every film completed, dozens of potential films fall by the wayside and never make it onto the big screen. In the VR experience Missing Pictures, Abel Ferrara, Tsai Ming-liang, Catherine Hardwicke, Naomi Kawase, and Lee Myung-Se give us a guided tour o ...

It Stopped Raining (2020)

A young bioarchaeologist Yukisuke is attracted to a girl Koyomi, who runs a small stand of taiyaki pastry that he often buys. Koyomi is hospitalized, however, by a car accident on a rainy day after they go out together, and wakes up with short term memory ...

Reel Herstory: The Real Story of Reel Women (2014)

Using rare footage and exclusive interviews with filmmakers from all over the globe, "Reel Herstory" corrects the historic notion that women behind the scenes in motion pictures held peripheral careers compared with their male counterparts. ...

The Tale of Iya (2013)

As a tunnel construction project threatens the natural order of one of Japan's last untouched regions, an old man and his granddaughter Haruna's humble lifestyle begins to influence the outlook of a man from Tokyo. ...

Shining Besides Funny Moon (2013)

A sexy mystery movie where a dominatrix and a detective get to the bottom of a string of suicides. ...

Trace (2012)

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 woman ...

Destroy Vicious (2011)

Birth/Mother (2006)

Tarachime is a documentary film which observes 'life' through childbirth. Kawase Naomi, a film director working under the theme of family, life and death, presents the bond of life through her own childbirth experience. "First, I was planning to film from ...

Shara (2003)

The Aso family live in the old town of Nara. One Day, Kei, one of the Aso's twin boys suddenly disappears. Five years later seventeen-year old Shun, the remaining twin, is an art student. He now has to move forward with his life, together with his childhoo ...

Letter from a Yellow Cherry Blossom (2002)

Naomi Kawase's documentary about Nishii Kazuo, a photo critic. He is the last chief editor for the Camera Mainichi magazine, rushing through his time with Araki Nobuyoshi and Moriyama Daido as provocative artists in the photograph world. ...

Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth (2001)

Kawase tries to come to terms with her late father, whom she never knew when growing up, and contemplates getting a tattoo like his. ...

Kaleidoscope (1999)

A photographer and a filmmaker challenge each other to shoot—one to photograph the other to film—two young actresses, one from Tokyo, the other from the countryside. The photographer seeks naturalism in his compositions, and Kawase observes and comment ...

Love & Pop (1998)

Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends engage in a practice known as enjo kosai, or "compensated dating", where older men pay young girls for dates. Hiromi plunges deeper into this world to raise money for an expensive ring. ...

Sun on the Horizon (1996)

The last piece of Naomi Kawase's Grandmother Trilogy, following Katatsumori (1994) and See Heaven (1995), filming her grandma and herself. Her gazes and insights are cast on the lovable beings in front of her eyes. ...

Memory of the Wind (1995)

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. ...

See Heaven (1995)

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

Katatsumori (1994)

Filmmaker Naomi Kawase captures the love, loss, and loneliness felt as she prepares to move out of her foster mother's home. ...

Embracing (1992)

A diary film about Kawase's relationship with her grandma and her search for her father, whom she has not seen since her parents divorced during her early childhood. ...