Hirokazu Kore'eda began directing in 1991, while working for TV Man Union, a major TV production company. His first theatrical feature, 1995's "Maboroshi no Hikari" (English title: "Maboroshi"), was selected for the Venice Film Festival competition — a rare honor for a tyro director. His international breakthrough, however, came in 1998 with "Wonderful Life," and his 2004 followup, "Dare mo shiranai (Nobody Knows)," a drama about children abandoned by their mother, was screened in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where 15-year-old star Yuya Yagira won the Best Actor prize.
This is your first real home drama — a basic genre in Japanese films. Did you want to see how you stack up against other directors who have worked in it?
I was raised watching home dramas on TV — I've seen a lot of them, but I didn't make this film because I wanted to make a home drama as such. It came from a personal reason — when my mother died, I wanted to express what she had meant to me in a film. I didn't have any bigger reason than that.