Tag - naomi-kawase

 
 

NAOMI KAWASE

Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 23, 2022
'Tokyo 2020 Side B': Behind the scenes of the 'pandemic Olympics'
While the overall tone is positive and inspirational, the second volume of Naomi Kawase's documentary on the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games feels overloaded with aural and visual details.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 4, 2022
'Tokyo Side A': Making sense of the 'pandemic Olympics'
Official Olympics documentaries can be as triumphant as a gold-medal performance or they can end up in infamy.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 19, 2022
2025 World Expo in Osaka to feature eight main pavilions
Eight prominent professionals from various fields, including Cannes Film Festival award-winning filmmaker Naomi Kawase, will produce the so-called signature pavilions.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 16, 2021
Tokyo begins removing Olympic decorations
Tokyo's contract with the International Olympic Committee states that the host city can only use Olympic decorations until the end of the year.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 26, 2021
Film director Naomi Kawase appointed UNESCO goodwill ambassador
'I believe my role is to shed light on people who have not been talked about across the world and depict them on the world stage,' Kawase said upon her appointment.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Jun 22, 2021
Filmmaker Naomi Kawase eager to improve WJBL's reach as new chair
The award-winning director is among seven women appointed to the Women's Japan Basketball League's expanded board as it seeks to capitalize on basketball's rising popularity in the country.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 21, 2020
‘True Mothers’: An intimate look at two sides of adoption
Naomi Kawase's drama tackles child adoption and teenage pregnancy with seriousness and compassion, while drawing a stand-out performance from Aju Makita.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 16, 2020
In ‘True Mothers,’ Naomi Kawase examines what makes a family
Naomi Kawase draws on personal experience in her new film, an intimate look at adoption that blurs the line between documentary and fiction.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 13, 2020
Cannes winner Naomi Kawase named producer and senior advisor for Osaka Expo 2025
Roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro, animation director Shoji Kawamori and media artist Yoichi Ochiai were also among those selected to help produce the high-profile exhibition.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 13, 2018
Juliette Binoche gets to see the 'real' Japan in 'Vision'
"It's so warm in here!" exclaims Juliette Binoche. "You know in (Michael) Haneke's film, I have a scene where I kind of suffocate and I think that I'm going to die? It feels like that! Do you think you can open the window?"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 31, 2017
Love comes as a light in the dark in 'Radiance'
'Radiance,' winner of the Ecumenical Prize at Cannes, is being promoted as a love story, but director-scriptwriter Naomi Kawase has more on her mind than getting her age-inappropriate pair into a clinch.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 25, 2017
Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia teams up with Exile's Hiro to create a contemporary fusion of vision and sound
From its debut in 1999 as the passion project of actor Tetsuya Bessho, Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia has grown into a big event on the local and regional film calendar. Size is one reason: The 19th edition, which unspools from June 1 to 25 at six venues in Tokyo and Yokohama, features nearly 250 films in a variety of genres.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 14, 2016
Is Southeast Asia now Japan's competition?
Japan is an Asian entertainment powerhouse, is it not? This October's Japan Contents Showcase, which was held in Tokyo's Odaiba and Shibuya areas, included markets for film and TV (TIFFCOM), animation (TIAF) and music (TIMM), with 356 Japanese companies selling to 1,539 registered buyers, most from Asia. Surely the region's multiplexes, TV channels and smartphones are awash with Japanese content?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 22, 2016
Keeping it real: Naomi Kawase on filmmaking
Naomi Kawase has always been an outlier in the Japanese film world, if a very successful one. Born and raised in Nara Prefecture, the site of Japan's ancient capital, she started making documentaries while a student at the Osaka School of Photography in the late 1980s, taking as subjects her natural surroundings and immediate family, particularly the great-aunt who had raised her following the break-up of her parents' marriage.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 26, 2016
Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia casts Tokyo in a special role
Now in its 18th edition, the Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia, which will unspool from June 2 to 26 at six venues in Tokyo and Yokohama, has grown into a world-class showcase for short-form cinema.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 3, 2015
Director Kawase disregards criticism of her sentimental leprosy drama 'An'
When I first interviewed Naomi Kawase in 1998, after she won the Cannes Film Festival's Camera d'Or award for her first feature, "Moe no Suzaku" ("Suzaku"), I remarked on her "quietly stubborn determination" to persist in the face of various detractors. If anything, criticism has increased in the intervening years. Feminists have attacked her for making apolitical personal documentaries, and her fiction films are favorite pinatas of critics voting in the annual edition of Eiga Geijutsu magazine's "Worst Ten" poll. At the same time she has garnered many awards and honors here and abroad, including seven invitations to the Cannes festival — the most of any living Japanese director.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 3, 2015
Director Naomi Kawase has finally made a 'real Japanese film'
Sooner or later, many Japanese directors — be they internationally acclaimed auteurs or industry outsiders — end up making what Sion Sono (a noted auteur/outsider himself) once described to me as "a real Japanese film." To put it simply, this sort of film is aimed squarely at the domestic audience, especially folks looking for a good cry.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 16, 2014
Reflections on the dark side of a tropical island
Naomi Kawase was once Japan's best-known female director abroad; now she is one of its most internationally prominent directors, regardless of gender.

Longform

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