With so many great docu offerings at TIFF this year, this film which hits San Sebastian next, might actually go unnoticed, but the hardcore Kawase fans know the special touch this filmmaker has in the feature narratives, docu and short form.
Doc programmer Thom Powers has assembled what appears to be a vintage offering this year, literally a who's who from the documentary field with world preems from Naomi Kawase, Errol Morris (see pic), Ondi Timoner, Alex Gibney, Kim Longinotto and Werner Herzog, while adding to the mix a foursome of must see documentaries from Cannes with Charles Ferguson's Inside Job, Patricio Guzmán's Nostalgia for the Light, Janus Metz's Armadillo and Frederick Wiseman's Boxing Gym.
This year, the award goes to a Japanese filmmaker who've I only been introduced by her most recent effort - the gorgeous looking, mind-boggling The Mourning Forest. Naomi Kawase will receive the honor at the opening of the section and will show a re-edited version of her 2000 feature Hotaru.
A common meeting place for auteur cinema, a special film was designed to recall the history of the section with testimonies from a who's who of favorite directors in Todd Haynes, Jacques Rozier, Costa Gavras, Michael Raeburn, Ken Loach, Alain Tanner, Carlos Diegues, Werner Herzog, Theo Angelopoulos, André Téchiné, Chantal Akerman, the Taviani brothers, Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee, Yousry Nasrallah, Idrissa Ouedraogo, Atom Egoyan, Michael Haneke, Peter Sellars, Naomi Kawase, Manoel de Oliveira, the Dardenne brothers, Stephen Frears, Sofia Coppola, Eric Khoo, Kim Rossi Stuart, Lisandro Alonso, Christophe Honoré, Bong Joon-Ho, William Friedkin and Jacques Nolot.
And the last additions to the Cannes programme is the ever-so-popular Cannes Classics - which promises plenty of restored (mostly 4k) national film treasures...