Nobuhiro Suwa began his career making documentary films in Japan. In 1997, he made his fictional debut with 2/Duo, selected at several festivals and awarded the NETPAC prize at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. M/Other was one of the first dramatisations of contemporary Japanese women. This second feature film, shot in 1999, won the International Film Critics Award at the 52nd Cannes Film Festival. Back in Japan, it was triply crowned at the 54th edition of the Mainichi Film Awards for best film, best screenplay and best soundtrack.
In 2001, H Story allowed him to return to the history of his hometown, Hiroshima, with an experimental work based on a remake of Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour. It involved working with a French film cast and crew, including Béatrice Dalle as one of the actresses and Caroline Champetier in lighting. This extraordinary movie was presented in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.
Increasingly enamoured with France (they owe him one of the segments of Paris, Je t’aime) Nobuhiro Suwa shot the film Un Couple Parfait in Paris, and in French (Special Jury Prize at Locarno in 2005), starring Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Bruno Todeschini. During the casting for this film, he made friends with the actor Hippolyte Girardot, with whom he suggested co-directing a feature-length film. The result was Yuki & Nina, delicately filmed from a child’s perspective and presented at the Directors’ Fortnight in 2009.
INTERVIEW WITH NOBUHIRO SUWA