STILL THE WATER

On Amami, a subtropical island in southern Japan, sixteen-year-old Kaito finds a body in the sea after a typhoon. He tells no one about it except Kyoko, his girlfriend, who has enough of her own to bear: her mother, a shaman, is dying, and the family is preparing for the farewell. Kaito, in turn, lives alone with his mother; his father left for Tokyo shortly after his birth. Between the sea, the forest and the island’s rituals, the two try to come to terms with death, love and the adults around them. Naomi Kawase shot “Still the Water” (Japan, 2014) on the island her family comes from.

Kawase has called the film her most personal work to date. It follows the cycle of life and death in long nature shots, with waves, trees in the wind and the slaughter of a goat, and connects them with the everyday lives of two teenagers. It premiered in competition in Cannes in 2014. “Still the Water” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2014.

Shown at the 2014 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2014 · Film Archive