Kawai Yumi met director Yamanaka Yoko during her high school years and handed her a letter saying, "Please put me on the casting list to become an actress someday." Six years later, the two met as the director and lead actress of the film <Namibia's Desert> and stood together on the stage of the Cannes Film Festival. The film <Namibia's Desert>, which was their first collaboration, was invited to the Director's Fortnight at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and achieved the remarkable feat of winning the International Federation of Film Critics Award.
Just seven years ago, Kawai Yumi was an aspiring actress, and now she is literally a hot actress in Japan. This year alone, she has four films set to be released in Japan, including the upcoming film <Renoir> in June. After making her mark in Korea with the film <Summer Film!>, she has consistently met Korean audiences with <Plan 75>, <Look Back>, <The Girl Doesn't Graduate>, and now this film <Namibia's Desert>. So far, Kawai Yumi has captured various faces of youth in her films. We took a look at the characters of Kawai Yumi.
<Summer Film!> (2021)
In the midst of summer, under the dazzling sunlight, the girls capture their dreams on camera. <Summer Film!> follows the protagonist Manbal (Ito Marika), who is deeply immersed in period dramas, as she sets out to make her own samurai film with her best friend Kickboard (Kawai Yumi), Blue Hawaii (Inori Kirara), and the mysterious boy Rintaro (Kaneko Daichi). In this film, Kawai Yumi's character Kickboard is a strong supporter of the protagonist Manbal. She is quiet and timid, but acts more responsibly than anyone else for her friend's dream. Selected through auditions, Kawai Yumi brings fresh energy to embody the innocence of youth and adds charm to the film.
<Look Back> (2023)
<Look Back> is similar to <Summer Film!> in that it tells the story of youth struggling to achieve their deeply held dreams. In this film, Kawai Yumi plays the role of Fujino, who embodies the position of Manbal from <Summer Film!>. She plays a girl who dreams of becoming a manga artist and has absolute confidence in her talent. Fujino meets a classmate who refuses to go to school and is a reclusive manga artist, Kyomoto, and experiences jealousy, longing, and the sorrow of loss in their relationship as they share the same dream. The story of the two girls growing up while sitting side by side at their desks, looking at each other's 'backs', delicately captures the waves of emotion with blurry pencil lines, sometimes intensely. Based on the manga of the same name by manga artist Fujimoto Tatsuki, <Look Back> is also the first work in which Kawai Yumi challenged voice acting. She became so immersed in the character of Fujino and the various emotions she encounters in her growth process that she even shed tears during recording.
<Namibia's Desert> (2024)
The origin of the name of the Namibia Desert, which is also the title of the film, is 'Nama', meaning a place where there is nothing. The Namibia Desert, which evokes absolute loneliness, serves as a metaphor that encapsulates the main emotion of the film, painting the inner landscape of the protagonist Kana. The film <Namibia's Desert> follows the precariously wavering daily life of Kana, a woman in her twenties who does not know what she wants in her life. In this work, Kawai Yumi completely breaks away from the stereotypical emotional expressions often seen in youth films, vividly portraying the unpredictable emotional lines of her character.
Kawai Yumi's Kana appears cool on the outside, but internally, she is a character filled with deep anxiety and deficiency. She easily feels boredom with her partner, who believes they understand her, and expresses unstable emotions and nervous anger in new romantic relationships. Kana's emotions burst out suddenly, and she does not even know the cause. Repeatedly watching the 24-hour streaming video of the Namibia Desert, Kana wanders as if searching for an oasis in the empty desert. Kawai Yumi densely expresses the chaos of a character who cannot find her footing in the two important pillars of work and love. Her desolate face captures the portrait of the current young generation living a life stained with deficiency and emptiness. Kawai Yumi won the Best Actress Award at the Japan Academy Awards for <Namibia's Desert>.
