Naomi Kawase

is a Japanese film director. She was also known as , with her former husband's surname. Many of her works have been documentaries, including Embracing, about her search for the father who abandoned her as a child, and Katatsumori, about the grandmother who raised her. Early life and education Growing up in the rural region of Nara, Japan, Kawase's parents split early on in her childhood, leaving her to be raised by her great-aunt, with whom she held a combative, yet loving, relationship. She originally attended the Osaka School of Photography (Ōsaka Shashin Senmon Gakkō; now Visual Arts College Osaka)to study television production, and later became interested in film, deciding to switch her focus. She was a student of Shunji Dodo at the college, and graduated in 1989. Career After graduating, she spent an additional four years at the college as a lecturer before releasing Embracing. Employing her interest in autobiography, most of her first short films focus on her turbulent family history, including her abandonment and her father's death. Many of her first forays into filmmaking were autobiographical, inspired heavily by the rural landscape.