
Naomi Kawase
Directing
Biography
Naomi Kawase (河瀨直美 Kawase Naomi, born May 30, 1969) is a Japanese film director. She graduated from Visual Arts Osaka in 1989. Many of her works have been documentaries, including Embracing, about her search for the father who abandoned her as a child, and Katatsumori, about the grandmother who raised her. Aside from being a filmmaker, she is the founder and Executive Director for the Nara International Film Festival.
Known For

No description available.
Welcome Back For An Extracurricular Lesson, Sempai

Acclaimed filmmakers from around the world channel their creativity during COVID-19 isolation with this diverse, genre-spanning collection of short films.
Homemade

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 good pastry.
Sweet Bean

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.
Love & Pop

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.
3.11 A Sense of Home Films

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 and son. The family lives a peaceful existence until the arrival of a stranger.
True Mothers

Corry, a French coordinator of pediatric heart transplants is sent to Japan where organ donation remains taboo. As she fights to save a young boy, her partner Jin, a photographer from Yakushima, suddenly vanishes.
Yakushima's Illusion

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 her mother’s terminal illness.
Still the Water

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, on 22 December 2011. A special projector was constructed for the event which allowed the actual filmstrip to be burnt at the same time as the film was shown.
60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero

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

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 loss, where she cannot remember anything beyond the present day. Yukisuke tries to live close to her as before but the lack of collective memory starts to stagger him.
It Stopped Raining

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.
Suzaku

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.
The Mourning Forest

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

A "movie" that is a mirror of the times. At the forefront of the movie, there are "important things" to know now ... Kento Nakajima learns about such "movie now" through interviews and on-site interviews.
What Kento Nakajima Wants to Know About Movies Now

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 to adopt the Nikaido name and follow in his footsteps.
The Nikaidos' Fall

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 childhood friend, Yu.
Shara

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 the synopsis, "a tragicomedy with no certainties".
Emergency Exit

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.
Reel Herstory: The Real Story of Reel Women

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