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Japanese auteur, Naomi Kawase has been selected to direct the official film of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. She won the contest with a proposal that demonstrated a “nuanced understanding of Japanese culture and Olympic values.”

Kawase is a regular at the Cannes film festival. Her works include “Sweet Bean,” “Suzaku,” and “Still The Water.”

The director of the official film must bring a unique editorial angle, and aim to capture the soul of a specific edition of the Olympics, while also considering the broader social and cultural context, the International Olympic Committee said. Kawase’s bid was chosen by Japanese film experts, international film experts, and the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage which advised the committee.

Previous directors of the official film include Milos Forman, Kon Ichikawa, Claude Lelouch, and Carlos Saura. She is the fifth woman to direct the official film, following Caroline Rowland (London 2012), Gu Jun...

Kawase will be the fifth woman to direct an official Olympic film.

Japanese director Naomi Kawase will direct the official film of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, on behalf of the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage.

Kawase was selected following consultation with the Foundation, the Tokyo 2020 organising committee, and Japanese and international film experts.

Her career began with documentary and short films, before she became the youngest director at the age of 27 to receive the Camera d’Or at Cannes for her debut feature Suzaku in 1997.

Subsequent Kawase titles to have appeared at Cannes include fourth feature The Mourning Forest,...

Award-winning Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase has been appointed to helm the official film of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. The selection was made by the International Olympic Committee in collaboration with the Organizing Committee of the Games who review proposals from the host nation’s top filmmaking talent. Kawase was chosen after close consultation among Tokyo 2020, Japanese film experts, international film experts and the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage who guides the production on behalf of the Ioc.

Kawase, who is a regular at the Cannes Film Festival, is the fifth woman to direct an Official Film, following the works of Caroline Rowland (London 2012), Gu Jun (Beijing 2008), Mai Zetterling (for one of the segments of the film Munich 1972) and Leni Riefenstahl (Berlin 1936).

She will also build on a legacy of more than 100 years of Olympic Film, including documentaries created for past Olympic Games that were held in Japan: Tokyo 1964 (Kon Ichikawa...

The legendary New York soccer team, the New York Cosmos, most famous as the team that “brought Pelé to America,” will be the subject of a new scripted TV series. The press release states that the focus of the proposed series will be on the meteoric rise of the club in the 1970s, through the maneuvering of former owner and Chairman of Warner Communications Steve Ross. Ross’ son Mark Ross is shepherding the project, along with former Cosmos captain Werner Roth, who is serving as acting executive producer. Four years ago, there was talk of a feature film based on the New York Cosmos story, with Caroline Rowland, director of the official London...

The 2012 London Olympics were nothing short of smashing (and wouldn’t NBC love some of those ratings today?). Now comes the official documentary of the games, First, an insider look at several rookie Olympians who bypassed car surfing and beer pong to focus on their golden dreams. The film focuses on young athletes in sports ranging from running to swimming, gymnastics to diving, cycling to BMX, boxing to judo and covering Olympians from the U.S. — including teenage four-time gold medalist Missy Franklin — China, Kenya, Ireland, South Africa and elsewhere. The doc from writer-director-producer Caroline Rowland will hit theaters May 30, followed by a July 27 airing on NBC.

End of Watch | Silver Linings Playbook | The House I Live In | Gambit | Cinema Komunisto | Starbuck | Nativity 2: Danger In The Manger! | First | Lawrence Of Arabia | Ninja Scroll

End of Watch (15)

(David Ayer, 2012, Us) Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Peña, Anna Kendrick. 109 mins.

If there was anything left to do with buddy cop movies then this does it, adding a raw authenticity and almost Tarantino-esque banter to the proceedings. We're on patrol with an Lapd duo whose partnership verges on the homoerotic, and whose sense of duty knows no bounds – a big mistake when they come up against a Mexican cartel. It's exciting, fluent and heavy on the shaky-cam, but ultimately paints a simplistic world of heroic lawmen and caricatured bad guys.

Silver Linings Playbook (15)

(David O Russell, 2012, Us) Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro. 122 mins.

Against-type casting and unbalanced characters do much to disguise the conventional bones of this satisfying romantic drama.

Better on details than when it's trying to uplift us with sport/pop montages, this film of London's Olympic summer crams it all in

The official film of the 2012 London Olympics is a mixed bag, inevitably compromised by the task of having to condense two weeks of extraordinary activity into under two hours. If Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia was so 1936, First is very 2012, reducing specific events to filler within extended montages that seek to describe – usually in slow-motion, to the accompaniment of pseudo-inspirational pop – the next steps in what Cowell-speak dictates we call the "journeys" of its highlighted competitors. Director Caroline Rowland fares best whenever she forsakes vague uplift for detail: the look on swimmer Chad le Clos's face as he realises he has beaten his hero Michael Phelps, the awestruck Laura Trott's unlikely omnium victory. Such moments seem to crystallise whole days of spectacle and achievement, and offer a stirring reminder,...

In the summer of 2012, the most talented young athletes from around the world competed for glory in the London 2012 Olympic Games. This is their story, courtesy of director Caroline Rowland (you might recall that she's attached to also direct a film on the New York Cosmos, aka the team that brought international soccer star Pelé to the USA). With unprecedented behind the scenes access to the the Games, and titled First, the film follows 12 Olympians as they prepared for London 2012, giving us a glimpse into what defines them as people and as athletes. , The film will be in selected cinemas starting on November 23, followed by release on Blu-Ray, DVD, and VOD platforms. ...

The legendary New York soccer team, the New York Cosmos, most famous as the team that “brought Pelé to America,” will be the subject of a feature film in development, with Caroline Rowland, director of the official London 2012 Olympics film First (which receives its world premiere in London tonight, Nov 6), in talks to direct. The Cosmos have already been the subject of one successful documentary, Once In A Lifetime (2006), which looked at the team’s rise and fall in the 1970s and 1980s; this looks to be a scripted feature film, with the working title, Twice In A Lifetime. It'll be impossible to make a film about the...

London -- Caroline Rowland's First, the Ioc approved official movie of the London 2012 Olympics, will be rolled out in British movie theaters from Nov. 23 by U.K. distributor Revolver. Billed as candid and compelling, Rowland's movie follows the trials, tribulations and triumphs of 12 first-time Olympic athletes. The movie is set for a Nov. 6 with London organizer and former Olympian Sebastian Coe expected to attend "alongside a host of luminaries from the sporting world." The filmmaker was granting unprecedented access to some of the most thrilling moments of the games, including gold-winning performances from U.

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London -- There is to be an official movie of the London 2012 Olympics: First will be written, produced and directed by Caroline Rowland. Rowland, who is shooting footage of U.S. swimmers in Tennessee for the movie, plans to put together a film about 12 first-time Olympic athletes, chronicling their journey to the games and their participation in them. The filmmaker, who wrote and produced the London 2012 Olympic bid films with Daryl Goodrich directing when the British capital was in the running to get the games, has secured the blessing of both the International Olympic Committee and the London

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