Naomi Kawase Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Japanese director Naomi Kawase will preside over the international jury of the 44th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival, running November 13 to 22.

The Cannes Film Festival has revealed the lineup for its new strand dedicated to immersive works. Among the eight projects in competition are the French premiere of Evolver, which will feature Cate Blanchett in voiceover, and the European premiere of Maya: The Birth of a Superhero with Indira Varma and Bridgerton’s Charithra Chandran as English voices. Meanwhile, the non-competitive works boast a stellar cast including Colin Farrell as the English voice in Gloomy Eyes, Jessica Chastain, Millie Bobby Brown, and Patti Smith in Spheres. 

The French Directors’ Guild (SRF) will fete UK director Andrea Arnold with its honorary Carrosse d’Or (Golden Carriage) award at the upcoming edition of its Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

Australian Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor and producer Toni Collette (Knives Out) has been announced as a Master at the 10th edition of the Doha Film Institute’s Qumra talent incubator, running from March 1 to 6.

At first sight, the film the French chose to represent them at the Oscars next year couldn’t be any more French. A chaste romantic drama starring Juliette Binoche as Eugénie, an unsung, genius-level private chef, The Taste of Things takes place in the kitchen at the sprawling rustic home of the famous restauranteur Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel), and features every culinary delight known to mankind. Food is braised, broiled, blanched, poached and sautéed, in carefully curated banquets that can take anything up to a waistline-busting 24 hours. Needless to say, audiences at the Cannes film festival savored every bite.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent “Casino Royale” Bond villain Mads Mikkelsen and Moroccan actor-director Faouzi Bensaïdi will be celebrated with career achievement awards at the upcoming 20th Marrakech International Film Festival that will run Nov. 24- Dec.

The Marrakech International Film Festival has unveiled the 10 cinema figures who will participate in its In Conversation With program at its 20th edition running from November 24 to December 2.

EXCLUSIVE: Deadline spoke to leading international sales firm Playtime about why it made sense to join new European film and TV studio Vuelta Group, which we revealed earlier this morning.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Prominent Paris-based producer Marianne Slot, who has been instrumental to bringing works by auteurs such as Lars Von Trier, Lucrecia Martel, and Argentina’s Lisandro Alonso to the big screen, is being honored by the Locarno Film Festival. Slot will receive the Swiss festival’s Raimondo Rezzonico prize for a producer who epitomizes the indie ethos. She will be bestowed with the award on Aug. 5 with a tribute that will include a screening of Icelandic director Benedikt Erlingsson’s environmental-themed black comedy “Woman At War,” followed by an on-stage conversation on Aug. 6. Born in Denmark, Slot set up the Paris-based production company Slot Machine in 1993. She has been Von Trier’s French producer since 1995, starting with “Breaking the Waves.” Over the years Slot has shepherded works by a slew of indie auteurs at various stages of their careers. Besides Martel and Erlingsson these include Bent Hamer, Małgorzata Szumowska, Paz Encina, Emma Dante, Marian Crişan, Juliette Garcia, Yeşim Ustaoğlu, Sergei Loznitsa, and Naomi Kawase.

Locarno Film Festival will honor French-Danish producer Marianne Slot with its Raimondo Rezzonico Award, given to figures who have played a major role in international production, at its 76th edition running from August 2 to 12.

Ben Croll A Coenesque caper-gone-wrong and an interactive mother-daughter saga told in bite-size form, XR titles “Kidnapped in Vostok” (pictured) and “Rock, Paper, Scissors” are among the 17 projects leading distributor Astrea picked up in a recent bout of acquisitions. Both titles are playing in competition at this year’s NewImages Festival, while other recent Astrea pickups include the Stanislaw Lem inspired short “Cosmogonic,” the award winning interactive film “Glimpse” from Oscar winner Benjamin Cleary and VR designer Michael O’Connor, and all five episodes of the “Missing Pictures” series, in which filmmakers Abel Ferrara, Tsai Ming-Liang, Catherine Hardwicke, Lee Myung-Se and Naomi Kawase reflect on the dream projects they could never get made.

Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical, coming-of-age drama The Fabelmans has been announced as the opening film of 44th Cairo International Film Festival, running from November 13 to 22.

Mark Schilling Japan CorrespondentNaomi Kawase, Japan’s best-known female film director, has been accused of bullying her company staff and assaulting a member of her film crew.In late April, Bunshun Online, the website of a leading weekly tabloid, published an interview with a former male staffer of Kawase’s production company Kumie. He stated that Kawase had punched him in the face in the company office in October of 2015.

Olympics premiered on Monday, shown to reporters and other invited guests in the Japanese capital.The work of Japanese director Naomi Kawase, the 120-minute film looks at the Olympics primarily from the point of view of the athletes — but not just the winning athletes.After Tokyo, the film will be shown on Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival in the Bunuel Theater, named for Spanish-born iconoclastic filmmaker Luis Bunuel.“The Olympics are not just about getting prizes, being first and going after a victory that is right before you in the moment,” Kawase said in a recent interview. “I tried also to depict the pursuit of becoming winners in life.”Kawase has also made another film looking at events away from the athletes, which called “Side B.” It will debut in Japanese cinemas on June 24.

There are few international filmmakers working today that have the acclaim and reverence of Naomi Kawase. And with her latest feature, “True Mothers,” selected as the official Japanese entry into the Oscars race, it appears she’s, yet again, in the middle of the awards discussion.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentFilm Movement has taken U.S. rights to Naomi Kawase’s “True Mothers” which is Japan’s entry for the international feature film race at the Oscars.The affecting family drama was part of Cannes 2020’s Official Selection and went on to play at Toronto, San Sebastian and Chicago film festivals.

Emilio Mayorga Palme d’Or winning producer Luis Miñarro (“Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives”) is set to direct his fifth feature, ”Impalpable” (a working title), produced by Miñarro’s label, Barcelona-based Eddie Saeta, one of Spain’s most prominent arthouse shingles.Written by Miñarro, “Impalpable” follows a series of characters who take a bus to an unspecified destination. The situation becomes graduallystranger as the bus make no stops.

Maggie Lee Chief Asia Film CriticThere are cinephiles who are transported to aesthetic nirvana by Naomi Kawase’s eco-spiritualism, and there are critics who flee her cinematic ashram. Neither will be wholly satisfied with “True Mothers,” the director’s contemplation of motherhood and adoption, which is her most plot-driven but least visually lustrous film yet.

Andreas Wiseman International EditorThe Toronto Film Festival (September 10-19) has revealed the lineup for its hybrid 2020 edition, which has had to be pared back due to the impact of coronavirus.Joining movies previously announced for the festival are new projects by the likes of Werner Herzog, Regina King, Francois Ozon and Naomi Kawase. Mira Nair’s TV series A Suitable Boy has been set as the festival’s closing film.

Spain's San Sebastian Film Festival unveiled its first six competition titles for its 68th edition, including movies from Naomi Kawase, François Ozon and Thomas Vinterberg. Most of the movies arefrom the Cannes Film Festival's "Cannes 2020" selection, which is made up of films that carry the Cannes brand to the screen at other events around the world.

Halle Berry’s directorial debut, Bruised, and Kate Winslet’s Ammonite are to screen at the 45th Toronto International Film Festival in Canada in September.

Earlier this year, it was expected that Naomi Kawase was going to make her return to Cannes, where she has screened a number of her films over the years, to premiere her highly-anticipated drama, “True Mothers.” Unfortunately, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, “True Mothers” won’t get to premiere in France, but it was recently added to the list of Cannes 2020 Official Selections.

Pixar’s “Soul,” Wes Anderson’s star-packed “The French Dispatch” and Steve McQueen’s “Mangrove” and Lover’s Rock” are among the 56 movies which will receive a Cannes 2020 label as part of the festival’s eclectic Official Selection.

By Elsa Keslassy

By Elsa Keslassy