Naomi Kawase
Biography
Naomi Kawase (河瀨直美 Kawase Naomi, born May 30, 1969) is a Japanese film director. She graduated from Visual Arts Osaka in 1989. Many of her works have been documentaries, including Embracing, about her search for the father who abandoned her as a child, and Katatsumori, about the grandmother who raised her. Aside from being a filmmaker, she is the founder and Executive Director for the Nara International Film Festival.
Acting (20 movies)
Love & Pop
1998
Shara
2003
Destroy Vicious
2011
Shining Besides Funny Moon
2013
Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth
2001
Embracing
1992
Letter from a Yellow Cherry Blossom
2002
See Heaven
1995
The Tale of Iya
2013
Missing Pictures
2021
Birth/Mother
2006
It Stopped Raining
2020
Katatsumori
1994
Reel Herstory: The Real Story of Reel Women
2014
Amami
2016
Emergency Exit
2025
The Wolf, the Fox, and the Leopard
2025
Kaleidoscope
1999
Echoes of Motherhood
2025
Women Make Films
2004
Directing (53 movies)
The Mourning Forest
2007
Shara
2003
Suzaku
1997
To The Future
2021
Hanezu
2012
Genpin
2010
Visitors
2009
Trace
2012
echo
2023
Kaleidoscope
1999
Birth/Mother
2006
Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth
2001
The Weald
1998
Nanayo
2008
Embracing
1992
See Heaven
1995
Katatsumori
1994
Letter from a Yellow Cherry Blossom
2002
Official Film of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Side B
2022
Still the Water
2014
Koma
2009
Firefly
2001
Sweet Bean
2015
Cinematic Correspondences: Isaki Lacuesta - Naomi Kawase
2009
Cinema Fighters
2018
Sun on the Horizon
1996
Official Film of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 Side A
2022
Haiku
2009
The Moon
2018
Seed
2016
3.11 A Sense of Home Films
2011
Memory of the Wind
1995
This World (A Correspondence Between Naomi Kawase and Hirokazu Koreeda)
1996
Lies
2016
Presently,
1989
The Girls' Daily Bread
1990
Papa's Ice Cream
1988
My Sole Family
1989
My J-W-F
1988
The Concretization of These Things Flying Around Me
1988
I Focus on That Which Interests Me
1988
A Small Largeness
1989
Like Happiness
1991
Hikaru Utada: Sakura Nagashi
2012
Where Does the Sand Go?
2017
Radiance
2017
Vision
2018
White Moon
1993
Parallel World
2018
True Mothers
2020
60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero
2011
Amami
2016
Yakushima's Illusion
2026
| Title | Year | Job |
|---|---|---|
| Embracing | 1992 | Producer |
| Embracing | 1992 | Writer |
| Katatsumori | 1994 | Producer |
| Katatsumori | 1994 | Writer |
| Sun on the Horizon | 1996 | Writer |
| Suzaku | 1997 | Writer |
| The Weald | 1998 | Writer |
| The Weald | 1998 | Producer |
| Kaleidoscope | 1999 | Writer |
| Firefly | 2001 | Writer |
| Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth | 2001 | Writer |
| Letter from a Yellow Cherry Blossom | 2002 | Writer |
| Shara | 2003 | Writer |
| The Mourning Forest | 2007 | Screenplay |
| The Mourning Forest | 2007 | Producer |
| Nanayo | 2008 | Screenplay |
| Nanayo | 2008 | Producer |
| Visitors | 2009 | Writer |
| Genpin | 2010 | Writer |
| Genpin | 2010 | Producer |
| Hanezu | 2012 | Screenplay |
| Hanezu | 2012 | Producer |
| Inori | 2012 | Producer |
| Trace | 2012 | Writer |
| Still the Water | 2014 | Screenplay |
| Still the Water | 2014 | Producer |
| Sweet Bean | 2015 | Screenplay |
| A Midsummer's Fantasia | 2015 | Producer |
| Seed | 2016 | Writer |
| Radiance | 2017 | Screenplay |
| Where Does the Sand Go? | 2017 | Writer |
| Cinema Fighters | 2018 | Writer |
| Vision | 2018 | Writer |
| Vision | 2018 | Producer |
| The Moon | 2018 | Writer |
| The Nikaidos' Fall | 2019 | Executive Producer |
| True Mothers | 2020 | Screenplay |
| Tracing Her Shadow | 2021 | Executive Producer |
| Beyond the Fog | 2023 | Producer |
| Yakushima's Illusion | 2026 | Writer |