Title of film : Vision
Director Name : Naomi Kawase
Cast & crew :
Producer : Naomi Kawase,Marianne Slot
Editor : Yoichi Shibuya
Cast :
Synopsis : Jeanne, a French journalist, comes to Japan in search of 'Vision', a rare medicinal herb said to strip away all spiritual anguish and weaknesses in human beings. She knows that 'Vision' only appears once every 997 years under special conditions and that time is near. Aki, a wise villager who knows the forest well, prophesies the arrival of the mysterious 'One' and then disappears. Tomo, who was devoted to Aki, works as a keeper of the forests and is beginning to sense, instinctively, recent changes in the mountains. Is there a connection between the disappearance of Aki and the changes taking place in the forest? Will Jeanne succeed in finding the phantom herb Vision? A millennial event is taking place in the Yoshino mountains of Nara, opening a door to the One and the true potential of human existence.
Director Bio : Born in Nara, Japan, Naomi Kawase graduated from the Visual Arts College Osaka in 1989. Embracing (1992) and Katatsumori (1994) received international recognition and awards at the 1995 Yamagata Documentary Film Festival. In 1997, she became the youngest winner of the Camera d’or, for her first feature Suzaku, presented at the Directors’ Fortnight. In 2000, Hotaru won both the FIPRESCI and the CICAE Prizes at Locarno. Then followed a whole series of feature films selected at the Festival de Cannes in Competition: Shara (2003), The Mourning Forest (Grand Prix 2007), Hanezu (2011) and Still the Water (2014). Sweet Red Bean Paste was selected to be the 2015 Un Certain Regard opening film. Naomi Kawase is also highly recognized for her accomplishments in documentary filmmaking. Among other honours, she received the Carrosse d’or from the Directors’ Fortnight (2009) and was made Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture (2015). She was a member of the Jury headed by Steven Spielberg at the 66th Festival de Cannes. Retrospective exhibitions of Kawase’s work have been organized all over Europe, including The Jeu de Paume in Paris (2002). In 2010, she founded the International Nara Film Festival, dedicated to promoting the work of young directors.
Filmography :
