One of Japan’s leading female directors, Kawase Naomi first came to international attention in 1997 when she became the youngest winner of the Cannes Caméra d’Or with her debut feature Moe no Suzaku. Ten years later, she won the Grand Prix at the 30th Cannes Film Festival with her acclaimed film The Mourning Forest. Though better known for her full-length narrative films, Kawase has spent most of her filmmaking career working with documentaries, often of an autobiographical nature. Continuously pointing the camera at her own life, she has turned her relentless search for self into compelling film, from her attempts to understand the father who abandoned her as a child (Embracing and Sky, Wind, Fire, Water, Earth) to essays about the grandmother who raised her (Katatsumori). Kawase is equally adept at observing others as evident in Letter from a Yellow Cherry Blossom, an intimate portrait of the final days of photo critic and editor Kazuo Nishii, and The Wield which follows groups of elderly people living in the mountains of Nara. This Kawase Naomi documentary boxset is a rare opportunity to see eight of her documentaries, including early works that have never been theatrically released. YesAsia

Katatsumori.1994.DVD.AC3.x264.mkv

General
Container:	Matroska
Runtime:	39mn 19s
Size:	722 MiB
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https://nitro.download/view/B0122BA86984416/Katatsumori.1994.DVD.AC3.x264.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Naomi Kawase – Katatsumori (1994) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

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Set in the mountains of rural Nara prefecture, the film centers on the Tahara family who eke out a living from the local ancient cedar forests. The head of the family, Kyozo, becomes fixated by plans to build a tunnel to improve the accessibility of the area. Construction begins, but is halted halfway through. Fifteen years later building has still not restarted, and the family is destitute. Against this backdrop, some family affairs develop. Kyozo’s daughter, Michiru, starts to fall in love with Eisuke, her cousin. Eisuke, meanwhile, finds himself attracted to his aunt.

Moe.no.suzaku.1997.DVDRip.x264.AAC.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1h 36mn
Size: 	1.24 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	652x480 ~> 768x480
Aspect ratio:  	16:10
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https://nitro.download/view/B18030527851A62/Moe.no.suzaku.1997.DVDRip.x264.AAC.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Naomi Kawase – Moe no suzaku AKA The God Suzaku (1997) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

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Nanayo is the latest film from Naomi Kawase, the winner of the Grand Prix at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival with The Mourning Forest and BAFF 2003 with Shara. Making a change from Kawase’s former films, which are all set in her native Nara, Nanayo was shot in a poetic village in Thailand. The movie details the human drama that unfolds as different people of different nationalities happen to come together under one roof in a house in the middle of a forest. Lacking a common language, the art of traditional Thai massage becomes the tool they use to communicate. Removed from the speed of modern life, they form a strange but happy pseudo family. Kawase works for the first time with a multi-national cast and staff, including Grégoire Colin (seen in Claire Denis’ Beau Travail and Erick Zonca’s La vie rêvée des anges) and favorite’s Rivette and Truffaut Caroline Champetier as a director of photograhpy. Almost nothing is ever revealed about anyone’s backgrounds but as usual in Naomi Kawase’s movies, nature, atmosphere and landscape have much to say.

2.71GB | 1h 25m | 1280×720 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/9F3A78E239E4D21/Nanayomachi.AKA.Nanayo.2008.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DD+2.0.x264-Cinefeel.mkv

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Naomi Kawase – Nanayomachi AKA Nanayo (2008) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Emotionally withdrawn strip club dancer Ayako has never recovered from her mother’s suicide when she was young. She begins a relationship with patient potter Daiji, but leaves him behind when she quits her job and returns to her home town after a 10 year absence.

2.25GB | 2h 45m | 704×360 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/1D9FA745F439C50/Hotaru_(2000_-_NTSC_VHSRIP).mkv
https://nitro.download/view/A08D6D97FED343B/Hotaru_(2000_-_NTSC_VHSRIP)_-_05.srt

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English

The post Naomi Kawase – Hotaru AKA Firefly (2000) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

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n April 24, 2004, Kawase Naomi had a son, Mitsuki. Following Japanese tradition, she gave birth on a tatami mat, assisted by a midwife and surrounded by all her family. As soon as the umbilical cord was cut, she tools up her camera and films every day her child and her ninety-year-old grandmother. With this highly emotionally affecting «docu-diary» the filmmaker continues to reflect on the world around her, her origins and the future. Although she initially wanted to describe only the life she carried within her for nine months, Kawase Naomi eventually extended the scope of her film to include Mitsuki’s interaction with those around him. By deliberately breaking with any notion of linear temporarily, she creates, with gentleness but also with harshness and violence, a pendulum like movement between moments, past and present feelings.

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Tarachime is an old Japanese word for ”mother”. Combining both fictional and documentary elements in her films, director Naomi Kawase never knew her mother; instead, she was raised by her grandmother Uno. The Tarachime video diary begins with the birth of Kawase’s son, Mitsuki, in spring 2004 when the grandmother was 99 years old. Kawase’s film, making use of poetic, personal, corporeal, even brutal narration, explores the world around them and the social interaction taking place in it. The temporal distance between the birth of the child and the death of the grandmother is crossed by the means of open narration. There is a connection between the worlds of the living and the dead because a human being always leaves something behind.

‘Traces left for the future to connect– My mother left me when I was a child. And now I myself have become a mother… I will never abandon my son. Now a mother myself, I do not find myself understanding my parent’s feelings, but rather discovering that my feelings draw closer to my child… Instead of filling in the losses of the past, perhaps I can re-formulate memories of the past and give birth to something new. I wanted to be born, because I wanted to live.’

Naomi Kawase embarks upon a new world. ‘Embracing’, ‘Kya Ka Ra Ba A’, ‘Letter from a Yellow Cherry Blossom’ … these very personal works of Naomi Kawase’s filmography were forms of artistic expression attempting to fill in the void from her own ‘losses in life’, such as parting and death. Now, as the mother of a newborn baby, she embarks upon a new era of her career. A new beginning that goes beyond the barrenness of loss and expresses the primitive power inherent in human nature. This new film will become the starting point for Naomi’s new life as a mother and filmmaker.

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https://nitro.download/view/CF231A9C29603C0/Tarachime.rar

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English hardcoded

The post Naomi Kawase – Tarachime (2006) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

After a long and unsuccessful struggle to get pregnant, convinced by the discourse of an adoption association, Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a baby boy. A few years later, their parenthood is shaken by a threatening unknown girl, Hikari, who pretends to be the child’s biological mother. Satoko decides to confront Hikari directly.

10.00GB | 2h 19m | 1920×1038 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/BE69FFA58538F9B/True.Mothers.2020.1080p.BluRay.x264-WiKi.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/153C4C1F15F59D2/True.Mothers.2020.1080p.BluRay.x264-WiKi-eng.srt
https://nitro.download/view/FFE1E4B83AA9474/True.Mothers.2020.1080p.BluRay.x264-WiKi-pt.srt

Language(s):Japanese
Subtitles:English,Portuguese,Chinese

The post Naomi Kawase – Asa ga kuru AKA True Mothers (2020) (HD) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

In this autobiographical documentary, filmmaker Naomi Kawase seeks to reach her mother and father who abandoned her at birth.

658MB | 40m 16s | 656×492 | mkv

https://nitroflare.com/view/EAAA09F2E6A3E2C/Embracing.1992.DVDRip.x264-MOURNiNG.mkv

Language:Japanese
Subtitles:English (hardsub)

The post Naomi Kawase – Ni tsutsumarete AKA Embracing (1992) first appeared on Cinema of the World.