Japanese director Naomi Kawase (born 1969) is a celebrated filmmaker on the contemporary stage of World Cinema. Her best-known feature films since Suzaku (1997) have been screened and acclaimed widely, both on the film festival circuit, and (more intermittently) in art-house cinema seasons. These elaborately stylised yet strikingly personal narratives, shot on 35 millimetre film, have invited comparison with current masters such as Alexander Sokurov and Terrence Malick — especially in their exploration of sublime, spiritual themes and subjects, such as the constant return to motifs of birth and death.