Mitsuki Kawase

Tarachime is a documentary film which observes 'life' through childbirth. Kawase Naomi, a film director working under the theme of family, life and death, presents the bond of life through her own childbirth experience. "First, I was planning to film from the day I conceived a child and to the moment I gave birth. But I realized, while filming, that this is not the story of "one life." In the end, the film sublimed to a higher stage on which we can witness the knot tying one life with another."

Kawase pays tribute to the grandmother that raised her after being separated from her parents as a child. The film teems with memories, but it is the faded, dusty photographs capturing the kindness in her grandmother’s shy smile that truly bring the woman to life.

Naomi Kawase goes to the south of Japan in search of her family origins on Amami Island, with her four-year-old son Mitsuki. They meet parents, chat with the island’s inhabitants, eat traditional goat soup, observe a total solar eclipse. By reconnecting the threads of her family history, Naomi Kawase gradually fills the void left by her parents' abandonment.