ASA GA KURU (TRUE MOTHERS)

After repeated attempts to get pregnant, Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a child, whose biological mother is a minor who cannot take care of him. Hitari, the mother, falls in love with her seducer, another student who is not much older than she is, and takes no precautions. After a few years, she locates the couple who adopted her son, demanding money in exchange for not revealing the truth. But despite her fragility, Satoko finds the strength to defend herself and protect her family. Hitari accepts her fate after she is betrayed by a friend with whom she shared difficult years of social rejection.

Naomi Kawase (Nara, Japan. 1969) graduated from the Osaka School of Photography in 1989 where she subsequently worked as a teacher for 4 years. She became the youngest winner of the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival with her first feature film, Suzaku (1997). In 2007 she returned to Cannes with Mogari no mori (The Forest of Mourning), which won the Special Jury Prize. Her documentary Genpin (2010) competed in the Official Section of the SSIFF and won the FIPRESCI Award. She also opened the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes in 2015 with A Pastry Shop in Tokyo. In 2018 she competed again for the Golden Shell in San Sebastian with Vision. True Mothers has been part of the Official Section of the 2020 Cannes Film Festival and the Official Section of the 2020 SSIFF.