Born in Nara in 1969 and raised by her great-aunt, Naomi Kawase made autobiographical documentaries about her family before her first 35mm feature, Suzaku (1997), which won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes, making her the youngest winner. She often shoots on location with amateur actors, in a style described as 'fiction with a documentarian's gaze'. The Mourning Forest (2007) won the Grand Prix at Cannes, and she later made Still the Water (2014), Sweet Bean (2015), Radiance (2017) and True Mothers (2020). In 2022 a magazine reported that she had kicked a camera assistant on set, which she did not deny.
Filmography
- Embracing (1992)
- Suzaku (1997)
- The Mourning Forest (2007)
- Hanezu (2011)
- Still the Water (2014)
- Sweet Bean (2015)
- Radiance (2017)
- True Mothers (2020)