Miwa Nishikawa

Born in Hiroshima in 1974, Nishikawa Miwa received a degree in literature at the University of Waseda. She came to cinema while still at school when Kore-Eda Hirokazu urged her to join TV Man Union and work on his film After Life. After working as an assistant director on several independent films, she wrote and directed her first feature, Wild Berries (2003), which received the best screenplay prize at the Mainichi Film Competition. She next made a surrealist docudrama for NHK Hi Vision, with the star of Wild Berries. The film won a special prize in the documentary section of the ATP Awards. She has also written screenplays for the Yume Juya film series (based on the work of Natsume Soseki), which will be released in the autumn of 2006. Yureru is her second feature.