Miwa Nishikawa has spent more than two decades making films about people trying to find their place in a society that does not always know what to do with them. Born in Hiroshima and a graduate of Waseda University, she began her career working with Hirokazu Kore-eda before making her own directorial debut with Wild Berries in 2003. She went on to direct Sway, Dear Doctor, Dreams for Sale, The Long Excuse and Under the Open Sky, with many of her films exploring the lives of people facing difficult circumstances and the choices they make.

Her latest film, Children Untold, grew from research she began while making Under the Open Sky, when she discovered the stories of children left to survive on the streets of post-war Japan. What first caught her attention was the complicated ways in which adults and society responded to them. The film follows twelve-year-old Kotoko in the aftermath of Japan’s defeat, but Nishikawa concentrates on much more than the direct consequences of war. She looks at what happens to children when the adults who should protect them are no longer able, or willing, to do so, and at the ways those experiences can shape a person for the rest of their life.

READ MORE: “Children Untold” Review

At a time when children are still being caught up in wars they never chose, Children Untold is sadly relevant, but the story remains firmly connected to the history that inspired it. Nishikawa started developing the film in 2020, well before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 changed how many of us saw the world around us.

After TIFF26, we caught up with Miwa Nishikawa and talked about the real stories behind the film, the responsibility adults have towards children during wartime, what it was like working with young actors on such difficult material, her long-standing creative relationship with Kore-eda, and why she believes filmmakers still have a responsibility to talk about war, even when people may feel tired or uncomfortable hearing about it.

View of the Arts: You have said that you first became aware of the lives of post-war orphans while researching Under the Open Sky. What was it about these children that stayed with you strongly enough that you knew you eventually had to make a film about them? 

Miwa Nishikawa: Under the Open Sky was a story about a yakuza member who had spent most of his life involved in crime and serving time in prison, and his attempt to reintegrate into society from his middle age onward. This real-life person, the model of the main character, had this background when he was a young child that his single mother disappeared, and he survived on the streets and at train stations in postwar Japan alongside other war orphans. With no one to protect or care for them, they survived by stealing, shining shoes, selling newspapers, and doing whatever they could to get by.

What stayed with me was the fact that, in the chaos of the postwar period, when ordinary people themselves had very little to spare, it was yakuza members, occupying soldiers, and street prostitutes who sometimes showed these children affection and gave them a place where they could belong.

Japan’s devastated cities, with the defeat of 1945 marking their lowest point, then moved rapidly towards reconstruction and recovery. Yet the war orphans who remained in the streets as living reminders of the war were not necessarily treated as people who needed to be protected; instead, they were merely left there, as if society turned their backs toward them. I became interested in understanding where these children had come from, how they had survived as they grew older and eventually disappeared from the streets, and, ultimately, how they had viewed the society around them.

VOA: We learn history through dates – when a war began, when it ended, who won and who lost – but Children Untold asks what happened to ordinary people the following day. Was showing the aftermath, rather than the war itself, always at the heart of the film for you?

MN: Objectively speaking, we might imagine that once a war is over, the bombing stops, peace returns, the constitution is revised, and a democratic and fair society emerges. But for ordinary people who have lost their families and homes because of war, their “war” actually begins after that. Trauma, loss and resentment can remain with people for decades, and even I, having been born in 1974, can understand that many people never truly felt that they had found peace.

Because this is a story about “war orphans”, at first I thought I would tell a story set entirely after the war had ended. But these children also had ordinary lives before Japan lost the war – before they became orphans – with their own thoughts, feelings and passions as children. Children are among the greatest victims of war, but I came to realise that, caught up in the ideas being promoted by the government and military, even these very young children had a strong sense that they were contributing to the war effort. At times, they even saw themselves as being more actively involved in the fighting than the adults around them.

I felt that I could not tell their story without also showing this side of their lives.

VOA: One of the details I found heartbreaking was Kotoko cutting her hair and living as a boy because she understands that being a girl makes her more vulnerable. What did your research reveal about girls who actually made that decision in post-war Japan, and how much of their testimony found its way into Kotoko?

MN: Sexual violence and war have always been inseparable, both on the battlefield and in occupied territories. One of the Japanese government’s earliest concerns immediately after the war was sexual violence against women by occupying soldiers. Therefore, the government responded quickly to establish so-called “comfort facilities” for the occupying soldiers across the country and recruited women from the general population to work there.

After Japan’s defeat, the Japanese police had been disarmed and stripped of the authority to regulate or control the occupying forces. For women at the time, sexual violence by men and soldiers was essentially beyond their control, and I believe many felt that they had no choice but to find ways to protect themselves. There are also numerous reports of adult women cutting their hair short out of fear of sexual violence in the aftermath of the war, both in Japan and while making their way home from mainland China.

There were not enough shelters for people who had been displaced by the air raids, and people of all ages and genders were forced to live in underground passageways and other makeshift spaces in the cities. Among them were many young girls; there are reports that some resorted to prostitution on the streets, while others were loaded onto trucks en masse and taken to severely inadequate orphanages. Still others joined groups of boys who survived through theft and begging, adopting boyish behavior and appearance in order to survive. There were also cases of sexual violence against boys, not only girls.

There are accounts of girls being prostitutes in both objective reports and works of fiction, but I did not personally hear testimony about sexual violence from anyone who had experienced life as an orphan. In the first place, only a small number of people have ever publicly spoken about their experiences as war orphans. One researcher of war orphans told me that when female survivors were asked about sexual violence, “they suddenly became very reluctant to talk.” I believe this is because it is extremely difficult for people who eventually recovered and built ordinary lives for themselves to speak about their past sexual experiences or the violence they endured.

VOA: Kotoko does things that, under normal circumstances, adults might describe as wrong – stealing, lying, becoming involved with the black market – but the film never seems interested in judging her. Did you want the audience to question what morality even means when a child is hungry and survival becomes her only priority?

MN: I feel that when children are forced to abandon their morals simply to survive, that is entirely the responsibility of the adults. I feel the same way about children being made to participate in war. At the time, adults often treated orphans who turned to crime as a nuisance and pushed them away. But I believe it was the adults who abandoned those children who had lost their sense of morality.

At the same time, however, conditions of war and starvation can distort the judgment and behaviour of ordinary people who once possessed compassion and goodwill. There are many testimonies from orphans describing how relatives who had once been kind to them treated them terribly after the war. The horror of war extends far beyond its physical destruction.

What can we do to build a world in which adults are not driven into circumstances where they end up abandoning children? I believe the records of wars throughout the world can teach us something about how to prevent that from happening.

VOA: Ami Koyae gives an extraordinary performance, especially because Kotoko has to appear tough enough to convince the boys around her while we can still see the twelve-year-old underneath. What did you see in Ami during the audition process that convinced you she could carry such an emotionally demanding film?

MN: I felt that Kotoko could only be played by a girl with a strong will and the inner strength and energy necessary to survive. Ami’s eyes sparkle and she naturally radiates a joy for life and a sense of confidence. I felt that a girl who had a strong belief in her own abilities and appeal was exactly right for this role. At the same time, however, Kotoko’s confidence and strength of character contain a dangerous side: in wartime, those very qualities could turn her into a fanatical, militaristic girl whom no one could stop.

When I first met Ami, she had absolutely no acting experience, but she did not seem nervous at all. I also saw how quickly she understood what I was saying and how instinctively she could adjust her performance in response to my direction. That was when I became convinced that she could carry the role through. Another decisive factor was how exceptionally beautiful her singing voice was, especially when she sang the lullaby. She had never played the piano or accordion, either, but she loved music and had a remarkable musical sensibility; that was another major reason I chose her.

She is extremely positive and also very competitive. In every lesson, she approached the work with the confidence that “I can do this,” practicing patiently and persistently without ever becoming bored or giving up. She also has the ability to turn the love and care she receives from the people around her into a source of energy and use it to keep moving forward. Everything was a first for Ami, and I imagine the physical demands of the production were truly difficult for her. But I felt just as secure with her as I would with an adult actor. Other than concerns about her getting injured or becoming unwell, I never felt anxious about her ability to handle the role.

VOA: Sone is fascinating because you refuse to make her an uncomplicated rescuer. She is herself a victim of the post-war circumstances, but she also has to live with the knowledge that she failed Kotoko. How important was it for you to allow those two truths about her to exist at the same time?

MN: I think the dilemma that existed within Sone was probably shared, in one form or another, by many adults in Japan after the defeat. On the one hand, there was the question, “Why did I take part in such a foolish war?” On the other, there was the deep wound of wondering, “After suffering so terribly, was all of this really something we deserved?” These feelings were intertwined, yet there was no answer or salvation to be found. As they were swept along by the wave of postwar reconstruction, I think they had no choice but to pretend to have forgotten and simply keep moving forward.

Japan’s war had both an enormous dimension of aggression and harm inflicted on other countries, and a dimension of victimhood in which Japan itself suffered extensive destruction and attacks. I believe there is much to learn from both aspects, and that the desire among the Japanese people never to repeat either of them again has been passed down for more than 80 years. I also believe this is part of why Japan has managed to live without going to war since 1945. But as the number of people with actual experience of the war continues to dwindle, the lived sense of what war actually brings has also begun to fade from society.

Sone is a deeply wounded person, tormented by a sense of guilt from which she cannot free herself. But I see her as a symbolic representation of what I would call a “decent adult” in postwar Japan. Her suffering runs deep and continues, and even within the story, she is never completely saved from it. And yet I also feel that her enduring “struggle” may itself be one of the legacies Japan gained from its defeat in the war.

Even when all those who experienced the war firsthand are eventually gone, I believe that carrying that struggle within us and passing it on is an important part of the identity of people from a country that has experienced a major war.

VOA: You began your career working with Kore-eda Hirokazu, and you have spoken about continuing to exchange scripts and opinions with him long after becoming a director yourself. Looking back now, is there something you learned from him about observing children or allowing young actors simply to exist in front of the camera that you still carry into your own filmmaking? 

MN: Even now, when I am struggling with a project, I sometimes ask Director Koreeda to watch an edit and give me his thoughts, and sometimes he shows me his edits and asks for my reaction. The funny thing is that we both find it difficult to see the flaws in our own work, but when it comes to each other’s work, we can give precise and useful advice. 

I worked as Koreeda’s assistant director on two films, After Life and DISTANCE. So, in fact, I did not see him up close on set during the period after Nobody Knows, when he began directing children in a more sustained way. I don’t think I inherited his actual methodology for directing child actors to any great extent.

Koreeda is well known for not letting child actors read the script in advance. Instead, he gives them their lines orally on the day of the shoot and directs them on set. I think this approach works because he is a director with an exceptional ability to explain things verbally, as well as a remarkable, almost genius-like ability to create an atmosphere in which children do not feel nervous.

When I was shooting The Long Excuse, I initially tried using the same approach with the child actors. But a five-year-old girl told me, “I’m anxious because I don’t know what we’re going to do that day.” So I changed my approach; even if the children were too young to read the script, I began explaining the story and what was going to happen before the shoot, and we rehearsed together beforehand. I think the important thing is to remain flexible and adapt the approach to each child, depending on the content of the film as well as the child’s age, personality, and abilities.

In this film in particular, the child actors were not playing roles that they could simply perform as themselves. They had never experienced war happened 80 years ago, poverty, or the emotions of losing their parents. In reality, they are children who live happy, comfortable lives. So we began by gathering with the young assistant directors on weekends and gradually learning together about things such as the air raids during the war and what children who had been orphaned actually had to endure.

There were scenes in which the children experienced violence, as well as scenes in which they had to express intense emotions such as anger and grief. We therefore rehearsed repeatedly with them before filming began. I imagine it was a very demanding production for them, because they were being asked to do things on screen that were not “natural” to them. If their performances nevertheless appear natural, then all the time and effort we put in together was truly worthwhile.

If there is anything I did inherit from Koreeda, perhaps it is my belief that the atmosphere on set should be as calm as possible. Even when the circumstances the children are playing are extremely difficult, I try to create an environment where they can enjoy coming to the set, and where everyone on the crew can have a good time together.

VOA: There is something very contemporary about Children Untold. Kotoko belongs to Tokyo in 1945, but we are watching the film at a time when children are once again losing parents, homes and any sense of security because of wars created by adults. Were you consciously thinking about today’s children while writing a story about children from eighty years ago?

MN: When I first started the project in 2020, I thought that people today might see it as a story from a distant and unfamiliar past. But beginning with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, major armed conflicts have broken out in various parts of the world, and situations in which destruction and killing cannot be stopped have, rather, become something of a norm. The world has experienced many wars since the end of World War II. Artists, writers, scholars, journalists, and people from all walks of life have documented these wars, repeatedly expressed their destructive and senseless nature, and continued to warn us about their consequences. I found myself wondering how, despite all of that, the world could have come to this again.

At the same time, I began to think that perhaps, in every region, once the shock, reflection and remorse over a past war have faded, the same thing can begin all over again. History also shows us that, in every era, political leaders emerge who replace the logic of previous wars with new justifications for starting another one. That made me think that perhaps filmmakers and other creators in every part of the world must never stop depicting and talking about war. The creative process is extremely difficult, and war is certainly not the only subject that art can address. But since 2022, I have personally felt even more strongly that there is a need to keep talking about it.

I wanted people around the world not to see this film simply as an old story from Japan, an island nation in the Far East. For people everywhere, children being caught up in war is a shared human tragedy. I would be very pleased if the film could give audiences outside Japan a reason to feel that they, too, want to keep children away from war. If people tell me that the film feels like a contemporary story, then I will feel that there was a real meaning in making it.

Thank you very much for all the thoughtful questions and insightful observations.

Written and interviewed by Maggie Gogler

Featured image courtesy of Miwa Nishikawa

_{View of the Arts is an online publication dedicated to film, music, and the arts, with a strong focus on the Asian entertainment industry. As we continue to grow, we aim to deepen our coverage of Asian music while remaining committed to exploring and celebrating creativity across the global arts landscape.}