Born and raised in Nara, Japan, Naomi Kawase graduated from Visual Arts Osaka in 1989. With her first fiction feature, Suzaku (1997), she became the youngest filmmaker to receive the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival; whilst the Nara-set The Mourning Forest (2007) won the Grand Prix there, inspiring her to return to her hometown to found the Nara International Film Festival. Her acclaimed fiction work has become internationally renowned, but this special focus programme offers an incredibly rare opportunity to see the personal documentaries that Kawase has made throughout her career – several series of films that explore themes of identity, family and intergenerational relationships.

Read our catalogue essay on Naomi Kawase’s documentaries, written by Ela Bittencourt.

Presented in partnership with Japan Foundation