Japanese Director Naomi Kawase Accused of Bullying Male Staff and Film Crew
Mark Schilling Japan CorrespondentNaomi Kawase, Japan’s best-known female film director, has been accused of bullying her company staff and assaulting a member of her film crew.In late April, Bunshun Online, the website of a leading weekly tabloid, published an interview with a former male staffer of Kawase’s production company Kumie.
He stated that Kawase had punched him in the face in the company office in October of 2015. Kawase allegedly continued her assault against the staffer, leaving him facially bruised, as other staff members fled the scene.
He quit the company that day.On April 28, Kawase and the anonymous staffer issued a joint statement on Kumie’s site, saying that “The parties involved have already reached a resolution regarding the incident.” Earlier, a vernacular magazine reported that, in 2019, while on the set of her film “True Mothers,” Kawase kicked a male assistant cameraman, after he touched her while she was looking through the camera.
Kawase did not publicly respond to this allegation.The allegations may have played a significant part in sinking the box office debut of the first element of Kawase’s two-part Olympic documentary “Official Film of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games Side A.”Opening nationwide on June 3, “Side A” limped to No.
