2024-08-06 17:03:11
Invited to the “In Conversation With” sequence organized as part of the 20th Marrakech International Film Festival (FIFM), the director confides that she did not intend to become a director, “but the existential questions that I asked and to which I constantly sought answers were the trigger that shaped my career.”
According to her, “making films is not just an entertaining exercise; it is rather an opportunity to question your interlocutors and to provoke existential questions in them.”
The filmmaker says that her documentaries help her to draw on the past and explore the present, particularly through life in her hometown, which also allows her to give new life to her missing characters.
Speaking about her work on certain characters like her grandmother, she explains that immortalizing these moments in her films is a duty of memory and a kind of recognition towards the one who surrounded her with affection since her childhood. It is also a sharing of a personal experience with the public, she adds.
The Japanese director also explains her approach, which consists of romanticizing her documentaries to give them a soul, far from being a simple narrative exercise.
On her experience at the FIFM, she claims to have had the opportunity to meet the stars of the 7th art, to exchange views and cross experiences in the world of cinema today, noting that “even if our working methods differ, what we have in common is the love and passion for this profession.”
Asked about the contribution of professional actors compared to those who do not have experience in the field, Ms. Kawase says she advocates spontaneity and for this she constantly challenges herself to free professionals from “artificiality” and encourage them to be creative and natural.
She owes her success to her ability to focus on the human aspect in her work, particularly on women’s issues. Moreover, this commitment was behind her appointment as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2021.
In this capacity, she has to her credit a project to support young African female directors, which consists of organizing training workshops to prepare them for international competitions, highlighting the role of cinema and art in general in serving people.
For her, cinema is not simply a matter of entertainment; it is a means of presenting reality as it is.
Her meeting with the Marrakech public was also an opportunity to recall her experience of creating an International Film Festival in Nara, her hometown, in 2010, where she devoted her efforts to training the younger generations.
Naomi Kawase has won awards at major international festivals. She won the Caméra d’Or for her first film “Suzaku” (1997) and the Grand Prix for “The Forest of Mogari” (2007) at the Cannes Film Festival.
She directed “Still the Water” (2014), “Towards the Light” (2017), “Journey to Yoshino” (2018) and “True Mothers” (2020) and the official spot for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. She is also a producer and consultant for the Osaka-Kansai World Expo 2025.
“In Conversation with …” is one of the most anticipated events of the festival. It is a moment of debate and exchange with a wide range of renowned guests such as Australian actor and director Simon Baker, talented Moroccan director Faouzi Bensaïdi, French director Bertrand Bonello, American actor Willem Dafoe, Indian producer and director Anurag Kashyap, Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, Danish-American actor and director Viggo Mortensen, Scottish actress Tilda Swinton, Russian director and screenwriter Andrei Zvyagintsev, and American actor, director and screenwriter Matt Dillon.
2024-08-06 17:03:11