Netflix has nabbed another one, folks. The biggest streamer in the world is snatching up all the top talent it can get its hands on, and now Netflix has landed one of the best filmmakers working today, Hirokazu Kore-eda.
According to Deadline, Netflix is set to release “The Makanai: Cooking For The Maiko House,” a new series directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, later this year. Adapted from the comic book, “Maiko in Kyoto: From the Maiko House,” the new series is said to tell the story set in the geisha district of Kyoto, where the character Kiyo becomes a Makanai, who is a person who cooks meals, at a house where apprentice geishas live together.
Kore-eda said the story of the Maiko Houses is “not the story of people left behind by the times, but rather one that might provide us with a hint for how we should live in a post-COVID world.”
He added, “After receiving the offer from [producer] Kawamura, I actually visited Gion several times. There, I was surprised by how the people living in Maiko Houses were like a family without blood ties, and how the entire town felt like an organism connected by telephone wires.”
Kore-eda is probably best known for his Palme d’Or-winning feature, “Shoplifters,” from 2018. He’s also worked on films such as “Like Father, Like Son” and “After the Storm.”
The series is being adapted by Kore-eda and will have the filmmaker team up with other directors such as Megumi Tsuno, Hiroshi Okuyama, and Takuma Sato. ‘Makanai’ is set to star Nana Mori, Natsuki Deguchi, Aju Makita, Keiko Matsuzaka, Ai Hashimoto, Mayu Matsuoka, and Takako Tokiwa.
No official release date for “The Makanai: Cooking For The Maiko House” has been revealed, but again, it is said to debut later this year.