Naoki Kawai is a Japanese-Indonesian screenwriter and director based in Oslo, who completed a two-year film studies program at Høyskolen Kristiania. As director he is part of TalentNorge and Fabelaktiv’s program Filmtalent Innlandet 2.0, and along with four other program participants, they won the M:Brane 2024 pitch contest with the TV series Young Horizon. Naoki is passionate about highlighting perspectives and experiences of “third culture kids”, who lack a sense of belonging, yet possess a richness in cultural identity, something many at an increasing rate can relate to, in Norway and internationally.