Hiroe, the Monk and Me is a feature documentary about a lifelong artist who is determined to keep creating no matter what and finds a new lease on life when her encounter with a Zen monk opens unforeseen possibilities. It is about the transcendent power of art and the freeing of the mind.
92-year-old Japanese Australian ceramic artist Hiroe Swen has one wish: to keep making art until her final breath. Filmmaker Mika Nishimura first met Hiroe 32 years ago and they formed a bond that deepened through their shared Kyoto heritage and lives in Australia. As Hiroe faces grief after her husband's death and the challenges of aging, Mika returns to Kyoto, where a Zen monk's teachings on Mushin, the power of the natural mind, offer Hiroe a new way forward. When Hiroe can no longer work with clay, she makes a bold decision. After 57 years in Australia, she will leave everything behind and begin again in Japan - transforming loss into artistic renewal.
The film unfolds through three interwoven layers: Hiroe’s present-day narrative, her life story, and her relationship with the filmmaker which takes her on a journey with a Zen monk from Daitoku-ji Temple in Kyoto.
Hiroe’s life story emerges through intimate interviews, symbolic landscapes and archival material, tracing her journey from wartime childhood and an early artistic career in Japan to marriage, migration and more than five decades of creative life in Australia. Photographic images of her graphic artist husband Cornel and her parents, who migrated to Australia in their 60s, appear on translucent fabric in key locations in Kyoto and Australia, reconnecting Hiroe with those she lost.
In the present, observational footage follows Hiroe through grief, aging and the loss of her ability to shape clay. Her hands become a recurring motif: once her primary artistic tool, they now transform fragments of Cornel’s work into a final act of collaboration.
Her return to Kyoto leads to a climactic meeting with the monk, whose Zen calligraphies become recurring narrative threads. Poetic sequences interweave with verité scenes, revealing the characters' inner worlds.
A surprising offer from the monk lets Hiroe hold her exhibition at his temple in Kyoto. Embracing this new chapter, she has one message for the young: “If I can do it, you can too.”
The documentary has been in development for four years with support from Screen Australia, Screen New South Wales and Documentary Australia. Mika and producer Véronique Bernard are now looking for partners to take the film into production and bring this inspiring story to the world.
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