Kashiko Kawakita
| Kashiko Kawakita | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Native name | 川喜多かしこ |
| Born |
March 21, 1908 Osaka, Japan |
| Died | July 27, 1993 (aged 85) |
| Occupation | Film importer/exporter Film producer |
Kashiko Kawakita (川喜多かしこ? Kawakita Kashiko, March 21, 1908 - July 27, 1993) was a Japanese film producer and film curator, and the wife of Nagamasa Kawakita. As vice president of Tōwa Trading, together with her husband and daughter Kazuko Kawakita she was influential in the development of the post-war Japanese film industry, sponsoring actors and actresses, and in promoting Japanese cinema to overseas audiences.
Kawakita was born in Osaka, and travelled widely as a child due to her father's business affairs. The family settled in Yokohama when she was 12 and she entered the Ferris Girls' School, to study the English language. She joined the Towa Trading Company in 1929 as a secretary to the president, her future husband, Nagamasa Kawakita. Her first work at Towa was to translate the script of Kenji Mizoguchi’s The Passion of a Woman Teacher from Japanese to English. After their marriage in 1932, the Kawakitas used their honeymoon to make the first of many trips to Europe to acquire movies for the Japanese market. The 1931 film Mädchen in Uniform by Leontine Sagan caught her attention, and she convinced her reluctant husband to acquire the rights for the Japanese market. It became an enormous hit, after its success at the box office, the Kawakitas always travelled to Europe together to select films. They selected the works of numerous European filmmakers, including Jean Renoir, René Clair, Jacques Feyder and Julien Duvivier. They also brought Japanese films to European venues, including Rashomon by Akira Kurosawa, which they took to the Venice Film Festival in 1951.
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