Naomi Kawase Movies

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

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...

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...

A photographer and a filmmaker challenge each other to shoot—one to photograph the other to film—two young actresses, one from Tokyo, the...

The song "Sakura Nagashi" by Hikaru Utada, reflects on themes of love, loss, and the beauty of fleeting moments. The opening lines describe cherry...

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

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....

1989 short film

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...

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...

The last piece of Naomi Kawase's Grandmother Trilogy, following Katatsumori (1994) and See Heaven (1995), filming her grandma and herself. Her gazes...

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

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,...

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...

Kawase's entry in the Haiku project

From the music of Tunisian composer Amine Bouhafa, Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase crafts a story of two young people ruminating on existence and...

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

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...

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...

1988 short film