Hotaru

Daiji is a potter in the town of Nara. Ayako works as striptease dancer and shares an apartment with her eldest sister Kyoko and a friend. Daiji and Ayako fall madly in love with each other, but just happen to be in the middle of a very difficult time right now. Daiji’s Grandpa has just died and Ayako has just broken off her previous serious relationship and also had an abortion. She didn’t have an easy life anyway: after her parents’ divorce, her mother committed suicide. She decides to return to her home village after many years to see her grandma, but just before she arrives, the old woman dies. When she returns to the city, her sister turns out to have an incurable form of cancer. Daiji and Ayako try to come to terms with the setbacks and enter a new phase in their lives.Kawase, whose films Suzaku and Mange-kyo have previously been screened by the festival, tries bit by bit to penetrate her characters’ world of sensations, in a film largely made up of hand-held shots. In Hotaru, she investigates themes such as tradition and memory in a story that runs parallel to her own in some respects: Kawase grew up in the same area and, after her parents’ divorce, she was brought up by her grandparents. All her features and documentaries focus on the relationship between young and old and the nature of family relationships.