Kawase, who turns 38 on Wednesday, handled the complete production of the work which won the festival’s second highest accolade.

“Kawase handled fund-raising, production and the script. The pomp-filled festival awarded an entirely handcrafted film. This may stir up the Japanese movie-making industry,” a reporter for the TBS network said broadcasting from Cannes.

Set in the historic western city of Nara, the film tells of life’s trials of overcoming sorrow and death, featuring a demented, elderly man and his female caretaker.

Both lost loved ones — one a wife, the other, a son. They wander into a forest where they get lost for two days but come to terms with their loss and rediscover the desire to live.

“I made this movie with the desire to make Japanese be proud of it,” Kawase said in Cannes, as quoted by Japanese media.

“There are many difficulties in our lives. We try to find spiritual support in physical things like money, clothes or cars. But they can fulfill us only a very little bit,” she said.

“Things that we can’t see — such as someone’s sentiments, light and wind, the shadows of someone who has passed away — when we discover support in those things, then we can feel that we can stand alone,” she added.

Ten years ago, Kawase won the Camera d’Or at Cannes for best first film for “The God Suzaku” (Moe no suzaku), a family tragedy set in a remote timber village.

“At this festival that discovered her talent, she received a further honor,” Nippon Television said in its broadcast from Cannes.

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