Land of the Rising Fastball

After producing several experimental video art pieces, Tsuchiya first came to prominence with A New God, a personal documentary shot on video about his relationship with a right-wing, neo-nationalist punk rock band. Even though Tsuchiya is on the left, he ended up marrying the singer for that band, Karin Amamiya, who has since emerged as a spokesperson for disaffected Japanese youth in the media. The New God won an award at the 1999 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival.

Every day Pete Rose wakes up and goes to work. He's surrounded by bats, balls, gloves, and fans, and approaches each day with the same gusto which defined him on the field. But instead of a dugout, he's seated in a folding chair in a memorabilia store in Las Vegas. Nicknamed "Charlie Hustle" for his efforts on the field, Rose, now 71, agreed to a lifetime ban from baseball in 1989 after an investigation concluded he bet on games when he was the manager for the Cincinnati Reds. The ban has left him ineligible for induction into the Hall of Fame. He leads baseball with 4,256 career hits. - Written by ESPN Films

Since 1912, baseball has been a game obsessed with statistics and speed. Thrown at upwards of 100 miles per hour, a fastball moves too quickly for human cognition and accelerates into the realm of intuition. Fastball is a look at how the game at its highest levels of achievement transcends logic and even skill, becoming the primal struggle for man to control the uncontrollable.

In 2008, a year before the great Dock Ellis died at 63, radio producers Donnell Alexander and Neille Ilel, recorded an interview in which the former Pirate right hander gave a moment by moment account of June 12, 1970, the day he no-hit the San Diego Padres. Using their original radio documentary as the audio and inspiration, Isenberg commissioned an original animation from James Blagden whose incredible black and white illustrations, lo-fi animation and comic timing perfectly complemented Ellis’s masterful storytelling.

Kazuo Hara follows the lives and activities of Yokota Hiroshi and Yokozuka Koichi, members of an activist group made up of people with cerebral palsy.

It started with the unheralded arrival of a wisecracking heavyweight basketball player named Charles Barkley. Then came the recruitment of multi-sports legend Bo Jackson, a victory in itself since he might have gone to Alabama. When Frank Thomas wasn't drafted by a major league baseball team, he decided to cast his fate with Auburn... as a football player. Told through an unforgettable reunion of the famed trio at the 2013 Iron Bowl, here's the real story of how these future Hall of Famers turned the orange and blue of Tiger athletics into gold.

Akihabara is a neighborhood of Tokyo, Japan known as "Electric Town" for its rows of one-meter wide discount computer and electronics stores. In more recent years, Akihabara has evolved into a full-blown Mecca for computer enthusiasts, anime and manga fans, doll or "figure" collectors, video gamers and "Otaku" of all kinds. Because Akihabara caters to interests outside of mainstream Japanese society, it captivates an entire subculture of devotees. Join us as we peruse the shops, streets and Maid Cafes to present an engrossing day in the life view of Akihabara, and focus on the unique people who are passionately plugged into this town.

This is the story of Kaori Kawabuchi, a samurai sword performer, singer and motion capture actor. An inspiring woman keeping alive ancient traditions and spirituality in modern Japan.

An American journalist, a British sake brewer and the president of a centenary Japanese sake brewery join together to explore the mysterious world of sake, a generic name for Japanese rice wine, actually a sort of liquor. These unique individuals, fascinated by this extraordinary beverage, investigate the spectacular world that has grown around it thorough ages.

Two top baseball prospects in the Dominican Republic face fierce competition and corruption as they chase their big league dreams.

A band of Boston baseball players embark on a marathon game to beat Lou Gehrig's Disease. Will they make it all 100 innings?

90-year-old architect Shuichi Tsubata and his 87-year-old wife Hideko live in Aichi Prefecture. Their garden is bursting with 70 types of vegetables and 50 types of fruits, and they live in harmony with nature.

The incredible true story of a man who lived for 15 months trapped inside a small room, naked, starving and alone... and completely unaware that his life was being broadcast on national TV in Japan, to over 15 million viewers a week.

Baseball can be a stately game. It can even seem slow and a little old-fashioned. However, this Major League Ball production, which edits together a collection of professional baseball players committing errors, blunders, collisions, tumbles, stumbles, and pratfalls, makes it look like the Keystone Kops have taken up America's Pastime. And that tends to make people laugh. Includes a segment titled "The Field of Bad Dreams."

A 10 day trip to Japan captured in 8 minutes.

Dear Pyongyang is a documentary film by Zainichi Korean director Yang Yong-hi (Korean: 양영희, Hanja: 梁英姬) about her own family. It was shot in Osaka Japan (Yang's hometown) and Pyongyang, North Korea, In the 1970s, Yang's father, an ardent communist and leader of the pro-North movement in Japan, sent his three sons from Japan to North Korea under a repatriation campaign sponsored by ethnic activist organisation and de facto North Korean embassy Chongryon; as the only daughter, Yang herself remained in Japan. However, as the economic situation in the North deteriorated, the brothers became increasingly dependent for survival on the care packages sent by their parents. The film shows Yang's visits to her brothers in Pyongyang, as well as conversations with her father about his ideological faith and his regrets over breaking up his family.

The best team never to win the College World Series? It might have been the 1985 Mississippi State Bulldogs, who produced four Major League Baseball All-Stars. Two of them, Bobby Thigpen and Jeff Brantley, became Relievers of the Year, while the other two, Will Clark and Rafael Palmeiro, formed the imposing one-two hitting punch known as "Thunder and Lightning." The brash and bold Clark was born in New Orleans, the son of a pool hustler, while the soft-spoken and shy Palmeiro was a son of Cuban immigrants who did his talking at the plate. As teammates at Mississippi State, they nearly propelled the Bulldogs to a College World Series title. Thirty years later, director Rory Karpf revisits those fabled Bulldogs, tracks the complicated relationship between Clark and Palmeiro, and brings closure to men who should be remembered for what they did, and not for what they didn't do.

A documentary that follows Will Ferrell as he takes the field in five Major League Baseball training games, playing all nine positions for ten different teams in a single day.

A Japanese food writer embarks on her quest to cook the perfect Sunday roast. Her gravy evokes a taste of home both gently Japanese and quintessentially English. Blending her passion for British food with the memories that accompany each dish, it is a labor of love with all the trimmings.

In the late 80's/early 90's North America's favorite pastime was collecting baseball cards. People would invest millions, in this game of pirates treasure, by putting their mint condition gold in plastic sleeves, locking it away and hoping it's value would continue to rise year after year. Unfortunately, this house of cards would soon collapse, leaving the pieces of cardboard along with the hopes and dreams of fathers and sons worthless. Stu Stone was one of those sons, and his relationship with his father Jack, who was in the card business, would crumble with the industry. 25 years later, Stu is on a mission to discover why his beloved baseball cards are worth nothing more than the memories they hold of a happy childhood. What he didn't plan on finding though, was the most elusive card of them all, his father Jack.