Naomi Kawase was once Japan's best-known female director abroad; now she is one of its most internationally prominent directors, regardless of gender.
This change is largely due to her long association with the Cannes film festival, where her first fiction feature, "Moe no Suzaku (Suzaku)," won the Camera d'Or award in 1997. A decade later "Mogari no Mori (The Mourning Forest)," a drama about life and death in the forests of her home prefecture, Nara, was awarded the Grand Prix. And in 2013 she also became the first Japanese director to serve on the Cannes competition jury — an indication of her rise to the ranks of the international film-world elite.
So expectations were understandably high for "Futatsume no Mado (Still the Water)," Kawase's first Cannes competition entry since "The Mourning Forest," and a film that she publicly declared to be her "masterpiece." This may have jinxed "Still the Water," since it left Cannes without a prize, despite generally positive (if not rave) reviews, as well as a standing ovation at one screening, which one Japanese reporter clocked at 10 minutes — a report that ought to be taken with a grain of salt.