Koreeda’s latest movie a modern-day ‘Little Women’

TORONTO — The photo on Hirokazu Kore-eda’s cell phone isn’t of his own family but of a famous literary clan. A connoisseur of American cinema, the Japanese director chose this movie still from the 1933 version based on Louisa May Alcott’s novel starring Katharine Hepburn as the tomboy Jo (instead of the 1949 film with June Allyson in the role or the 1994 one with Winona Ryder). The photo reminds him of the intricate but usually enriching relationship that links sisters, the subject of his film “Our Little Sister.” Meeting their 13-year-old half sister for the first time, the women on a whim invite her to live with them and then discover the complexities of accommodating their new arrival. “Our Little Sister” cements Kore-eda’s reputation as Japan’s modern master at observing domestic scenes. No Hollywood director comes close, although Frank Capra and Woody Allen are among those to have taken stabs at similar subjects. Speaking through an interpreter at the Toronto Film Festival, the 54-year-old filmmaker at the outset wanted to make clear that his film has nothing to do with his relationship with his two older sisters. At the start of his career, he made documentaries on subjects like Japan’s welfare program and a classroom raising a cow together. “I went through the path of documentary films to get to make feature films, but in the process realized how interesting it was to do documentaries and learn so much about different worlds,” said Kore-eda, who augments his film education by watching 100 movies a year. Making documentaries also taught him that “shooting children, you have to be patient and wait for them to come to you,” a skill he’s applied to his narrative features.