Casa Asia collaborates with the Filmoteca de Catalunya for the Retrospective of NAOMI KAWASE. The opening will be on April 30, at 8 pm with the film QUIET WATERS and will feature the presentation and discussion of the filmmaker, Lluis Miñarro and Esteve Riambau.
Naomi Kawase (Nara, Japan, 1969) was adopted by a couple she called “grandparents”, and never knew her parents. In film she discovered the instrument to explore her identity and her origins, as can be seen in her first documentaries in super-8, 16mm or video, based on the incessant search for the parents who abandoned her and for herself. At the age of 28, she received the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for her debut film Suzaku (1996). Since then, her career has been an unstoppable succession of successes.
PROGRAM
Tuesday, April 30th at 20.00h (Sala Chomón)
Aguas Tranquilas (Futatsume no mado) | Naomi Kawase | Japan, France, Catalonia | 2014 | VOSE | 110’
Naomi Kawase travels to island of Amami Ôshima – where some of her ancestors come from – to express the grandeur of nature through the initiatory story of a teenage couple who experience love for the first time while having to face the death of the mother of one of them. The film is a compendium of the themes that most interest the filmmaker, such as the communion between generations. A film of spiritual character that takes place in one around purity and naivety marked by traditions and ancestral beliefs.
Presentation and subsequent discussion by Naomi Kawase and Lluís Miñarro.
Free session.
Wednesday, May 1 at 17.00h (Sala Chomón)
Friday May 3 at 9.00 pm (Sala Laya)
Triple session
Caragol (Katatsumori) | Naomi Kawase | Japan | 1994 | VOSC | 45′.
Kawase explores everyday life with her adoptive mother and captures love, loss and loneliness as the filmmaker begins to leave the nest. The camera focuses in close-up on her “grandmother’s” face as she eats and takes care of her garden. They argue and come to terms with the awareness that things are changing forever and ever.
Veure el Cel (Ten, mitake) | Naomi Kawase | Japan | 1995 | VOSC | 10′.
In the sequel to Katatsumori (Snail), Kawase reveals the love and strong emotional bond between the filmmaker and her adoptive mother.
El Sol es Pon (wa katabuki) | Naomi Kawase | Japan | 1996 | VOSC | 45′.
In the last part of the trilogy dedicated to her adoptive mother Kawase celebrates her “grandmother’s” birthday and records the stresses of aging and separation. When Kawase returns from her absence her “grandmother” asks her if she loves her, and snapshots of everyday life – tomatoes, dahlias in bloom, “grandma” eating from a boiling pot… – reveal shared moments of great beauty.
Wednesday, May 1 at 21.00h (Sala Laya)
Sunday, May 5 at 6:00 p.m. (Sala Chomón)
Double session
Als seus braços (Ni tsutsumarete) | Naomi Kawase | Japan | 1992 | VOSC | 42′.
“The absence of my father in my life was an irresistible theme for me. Not knowing what kind of person it was who brought me into the world probably made me a little insecure. And I thought that if I wanted to continue to grow as a human being, I needed to resolve this insecurity about my own identity” (Naomi Kawase).
Cel, vent, foc, aigua, terra (Kya ka ra ba a) | Naomi Kawase | Japan, France | 1992 | VOSC | 50′.
Narrates the filmmaker’s reaction to her father’s death a decade later by establishing permanent connections between her original research, her childhood with her adoptive parents and her unfulfilled longing for a relationship with her biological parents.
Thursday, May 2 at 10.00h (Sala Chomón)
Friday, May 10 at 17.00h (Sala Chomón)
Double session
Naixement – Mare (Tarachime) | Naomi Kawase | Japan-France | 2006 | VOSC | 40′.
Initiated as a filmed diary of her pregnancy, which was to culminate in childbirth, the filmmaker decides to continue recording, day by day, her son’s interaction with the people around him, especially his ninety-two-year-old grandmother.
Genpin | Naomi Kawase | Japan-France | 2006 | VOSC | 92′.
Documentary about the relationship between life and death through the links we establish with nature. Based on the experiences of women who give birth naturally and their obstetrician Tadashi Yoshimura, Naomi Kawase reflects on the meaning of human life beyond the limits of individuality.
Saturday, May 4 at 18.00h (Sala Chomón)
Thursday May 9 at 21.00h (Sala Laya)
Shara (Sharasôju) | Naomi Kawase | Japan | 2003 | VOSC | 100′.
One summer day one of the twin sons of a family of four disappears without a trace. The film explores the silent grief of this family. “The epitome of Kawase’s style. Shot at Nara, it mixes the supernatural with ecology, the sequences play cat and dog with their meaning and reveal a bipolar world filled with crucial questions and ruminations (your mother is not your mother; is your brother really dead?) until the final vertigo of the Basara Festival of dance” (Philippe Azoury).
Sunday May 5th at 21.00h (Sala Chomón)
Tuesday May 7 at 21.00h (Sala Chomón)
Una pastelería en Tokio (An) | Naomi Kawase | Japan, France, Germany | 2015 | VOSE | 113′.
An old woman offers to work in a small store selling dorayakis (sweets filled with a sauce called an, made with sweet red beans). Thanks to her recipe, made with patience and delicacy, the business begins to prosper. Kawase once again probes the meaning of life through a character who – like all her characters – finds herself on the margins of society. “This film is a hymn to life because just the fact of existing is already something wonderful” (Naomi Kawase).
Casa Àsia | Seu Social 
