Before World War II, Ikego village was an idyllic agriculture community. The Imperial Navy took over the village and the hills to build the largest ammunition preserve in Asia. When Japan lost, these facilities were taken over by the US Navy, and are now housing for the American soldiers.
Inspired by the student revolutions of 1968, two women in Germany and Japan set out to plot world revolution as leaders of the Baader Meinhof Group and the Japanese Red Army. What were they fighting for and what have we learned?
An unusual family portrait questioning the definitions of art, family, and what it means to be disabled. Imamura Hanako is a 22-year-old girl with severe autism. Once a week she attends a painting class, where she paints pictures in oils. Every evening after dinner, she creates what her mother Chisa has named “food art.” This may only involve arranging the leftovers from the day’s meal on the floor or a tray, but Chisa records the works every day, accumulating some thousands of photographs. The collection of photographs has now been exhibited around the country. Following Hanako’s daily life in the routine of the four members of the Imamura family, we watch as a portrait of a “very ordinary” family unfold.
Just after midnight on 10 March 1945, the US launched an air-based attack on eastern Tokyo; continuing until morning, the raid left more than 100,000 people dead and a quarter of the city eradicated. Unlike their loved ones, Hiroshi Hoshino, Michiko Kiyooka and Minoru Tsukiyama managed to emerge from the bombings. Now in their twilight years, they wish for nothing more than recognition and reparations for those who, like them, had been indelibly harmed by the war – but the Japanese government and even their fellow citizens seem disinclined to acknowledge the past.
A documentary film that includes footage of past Olympics held in different countries with an particular emphasis on the activities and successes of Japanese athletes and how they are currently (circa 1963) improving themselves.
A renowned old hotel near Nagoya Station has been in the red for four consecutive fiscal terms. When the old management stepped down, Akio Shibata, who has long been in the board of the labor union, is appointed its new general manager. Shibata's method for reviving the hotel consists of neither the laying off of the staff nor the introduction of performance-based system. He wants everyone to take part in the making of new management plans and for all employees to lodge together and engage in heated discussions about their management dreams all night. Yes, his management ideal is to "have the happiest employees in Japan" working in their hotel. He throws birthday parties for employees and has company cafeteria remodeled. All these changes bring about yet another change in the mind of everyone.
Un samouraï au Vatican
Bianca Charamsa made her way to Japan during this year's cherry blossom season to get to grips with the country's character through conversations with some of its artists. Although two violent atomic catastrophes - the bombing of Hiroshima and the Fukushima nuclear disaster - have shaken and shaped modern-day Japan, the artist Takahiro Iwasaki believes that memory of 6th and 9th August 1945 is slowly fading, despite all the folded cranes left by visitors to the memorial sites. Natural catastrophes like sea- and earthquakes also rock Japan time and time again; perhaps this explains why the Japanese aesthetic Wabi Sabi incorporates both beauty and decay...much like the beauty of the cherry blossom as it withers during the annual festival of Hanami
On March 11 2011, after a magnitude 9 earthquake, a giant tsunami destroyed most of the north eastern japanese coast, killing almost 20,000 people.
Feature documentary debut of 29 year old director Kei Tanaka. In the Japanese town of Kawasaki, elderly residents who have lived hard lives are now facing their own death at a public housing complex called “Danchi“. The young director explores and depicts the ageing population in Japan by focusing on the personal lives of few individuals who live quietly on the outskirts of society. While some of the protagonists chose to interact and establish friendships with their fellow elderly residents, others prefer to spend the rest of their years in solitary.
On April 1, 1945, the United States military launched its invasion of the main island of Okinawa, the start of a battle that was to last 12 weeks and claim the lives of some 240,000 people. This film depicts the Battle through the eyes of Japanese and American soldiers who fought each other on the same battlefield, along with Okinawa civilians who were swept up in the fighting. The film also depicts the history of discrimination and oppression forced upon Okinawa by the American and Japanese governments. Carrying up to the current controversy over the construction of a new base at Henoko, the film explores the root causes of the widespread disillusionment and anger expressed by many Okinawans. This ambitious documentary was directed by the American John Junkerman, long-term resident of Japan and Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker. Okinawa: The Afterburn is a heartfelt plea for peace and an expression of deep respect for the unyielding spirit of the Okinawa people.
Documentary shot with 17 cameras covering a gigantic free party featuring two bands and an idol unit. Produced by HMJM of the unorthodox hit The Sex Cannon Ball Run 2013, The Movie, with Iwabuchi Hiroki as director. November 18, 2015. Throngs of people gather at the concert hall LIQUIDROOM in Ebisu, Tokyo in response to an appeal from Asami Hokuto of the rock band Have a Nice Day! The concert picks up momentum and a mosh pit forms in the audience.
Hidden in the wooded mountains on the west coast of Japan lies the small Zen monastery Antaiji. A young woman sets off to immerse herself through autumn, winter and spring in the adventures of monastic life. The young woman is Sabine Timoteo from Switzerland. The abbot of the monastery is Muho Noelke, born in Berlin. An interplay between the philosophy of the Japanese Zen master Kodo Sawaki and the surprises brought forth by everyday life.
Using never-before-seen footage, Japan's War In Colour tells a previously untold story. It recounts the history of the Second World War from a Japanese perspective, combining original colour film with letters and diaries written by Japanese people. It tells the story of a nation at war from the diverse perspectives of those who lived through it: the leaders and the ordinary people, the oppressors and the victims, the guilty and the innocent. Until recently, it was believed that no colour film of Japan existed prior to 1945. But specialist research has now unearthed a remarkable colour record from as early as the 1930s. For eight years the Japanese fought what they believed was a Holy War that became a fight to the death. Japan's War In Colour shows how militarism took hold of the Japanese people; describes why Japan felt compelled to attack the West; explains what drove the Japanese to resist the Allies for so long; and, finally, reveals how they dealt with the shame of defeat.
The story of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, known as the Tokyo Trial, which, just after the Second World War, was established in Japan as a special jurisdiction in 1946 (it was closed in 1948) to judge the war crimes of the Japanese leaders; and how and why officials in Washington prevented Emperor Hirohito to be seen sat on the bench.
"Heart of the Country" is the story of Shinichi Yasutomo, the extraordinary principal of a rural elementary school in Kanayama, central Hokkaido, Northern Japan. Yasutomo is a man driven by his vision for learning and his passion for educating the heart as well as the mind. The film follows Yasutomo, his teachers and staff, students and their families over the course of one entire school year. The film is also the story of the families of Kanayama. Parents and elders of this once impoverished town embrace Yasutomo's vision, but not without wary glances back to the past. This small community, bound together by love for its children, is also defined by its journey through the cultural upheavals of postwar Japan.
Concert film and documentary featuring live footage from melody's first solo live tour recorded between June and July in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka.
Through the lives of professionals working at Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, the film portrays how Tsukiji has been the center of fish culinary culture and helped Japanese food culture to flourish as we know it today.
What threads of history bind Manhattan's Ground Zero to those of Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Or connect sight to truth, games to war, or the silkworm to the drone? What does the United States hold to be the role of science in warfare? How has war historically been waged in Buddhist traditions? These are some of the topics addressed in Eyewar: 80 minutes of found footage which traces the development of the digital image from the maps of the second century to the screens of the twenty-first, and the uses of the field of cybernetics from Japan in the 1940s to Chile in the 1970s and Iraq in the 1990s.
A dive, the midday sunlight filtering down through the water. The air in her lungs has to last until she can dislodge the abalone. Dives like these have been carried out in Japan for over 2000 years by the Ama-San.