Just Visiting This Planet

A documentary about legendary butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno.

Ankoku Butoh is a style of avant-garde dance that established itself in the counter culture experimental arts scene of post WWII Japan. The dance form is thought to have been founded by Tatsumi Hijikata, who both created and performed in butoh pieces from the late 1950’s - through the early 1970’s. In butoh, the style of movement is extremely stylized and deliberate, vacillating between slow and sharp, expressing feelings of dread, sexualization, violence, calmness, birth and “creatureness” among other things. This performance of Summer Storm was originally recorded in 1973 at Westside Auditorium, Kyoto University, Japan, and was Hijikata’s last public performance before his death in 1986 with Butoh of Dark Spirit School. Video version produced in 2003.

Mourning his past relationship, heartbroken college senior Austin Caldwell becomes obsessed with the "Big Break" song competition, convinced that the only way he'll be able to move on, is if he wins.

Don't Bring A Dog shows a part of the New York underground music scene - rooted in the early eighties - existing apart from MTV and billboard charts. Music, interviews, sounds and pictures of the city blend into a collage. Don't Bring A Dog works like a time capsule of people and music in NY at a particular moment

Inspired by Steven Blush's book "American Hardcore: A tribal history" Paul Rachman's feature documentary debut is a chronicle of the underground hardcore punk years from 1979 to 1986. Interviews and rare live footage from artists such as Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, SS Decontrol and the Dead Kennedys.

BUNS

The Los Angeles punk music scene circa 1980 is the focus of this film. With Alice Bag Band, Black Flag, Catholic Discipline, Circle Jerks, Fear, Germs, and X.

The night before her eighteenth birthday recital, an overworked and undertalented pianist is abducted by three ghouls.

On the edge of the 30th anniversary of punk rock, Punk's Not Dead takes you into the sweaty underground clubs, backyard parties, recording studios, shopping malls and stadiums where punk rock music and culture continue to thrive.

The dark sensibilities and cultural resonances of Butoh, the radical Japanese dance movement, are explored in this multilayered work. Profoundly rooted in both traditional and contemporary Japanese culture, Butoh arose in a spirit of revolt in the early 1960s. Characterized by frank sexuality and bodily distortions, Butoh transforms traditional dance movements into new forms, stripping away the taboos of contemporary Japanese culture to reveal a secret world of darkness and irrationality.

A murder has happened at the time of COVID, and the female cop is on duty to find the murderer.

A visual documentary of Einstürzende Neubauten, the German underground band, by Japanese cult director Sogo Ishii, made during their 1985 tour of Japan. The band makes an elaborate and remarkably choreographed appearance in the ruins of an old ironworks which was scheduled for demolition; footage of same was incorporated into the movie and a brief appearance on stage.

The Naked Summer is a film that documents young artists' effort and growth while training and preparing for a performance of Butou that is praised internationally as a unique art form. Butou was born about 40 years ago as a form of modern dance that pursues the untraditional movement of the body and defies the convention of the human body. As a result, it is known for the dancer's strange facial expressions, naked body covered in white powder, and strong visuals. The film contains the summer training process of the dance group Dairakudakan led by a veteran artist of Butou, Akaji Maro

A documentary about the underground singer-songwriter Tobias Gruben, his upbringing and his musical career, featuring past live perfomances by himself and cover versions of his songs by contemporary artists.

A selection of seemingly unconnected scenes featuring Nick Cave, Blixa Bargeld, Nina Hagen and Lene Lovich. Losely based on Voltaire's satire "Candide".

Comprising historic archive footage and texts this DVD box enlightens us greatly about Yoshito Ohno's here and now. Butoh has a distinct starting point, namely, in 1959, with Kinjiki , a duet featuring Tatsumi Hijikata and Yoshito Ohno. His father, the legendary Kazuo Ohno created another epoch-making opus in 1977 Admiring La Argentina, with Yoshito Ohno as production manager. These links are no mere coincidence. To date, we've tended to overlook Yoshito Ohno, barely granting him the recognition he merits. Just as dance requires a lengthy gestation period in which to evolve, his dance has finally come into our field of vision, in all its freshness and stark-nakedness, linking Butoh's origins to its zenith, to a point where he now stands at a crossroads.

This is Poe and Král's first effort, shot on small-gauge stock, before their more well-known endeavor The Blank Generation (1976) came to be. A "DIY" portrait of the New York music scene, the film is a patchwork of footage of numerous rock acts performing live, at venues like Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, the dive bars of Greenwich Village and, of course, CBGB.

The work contains Butoh works and methods by Tomoe Shizune in omnibus format. It will be re-edited and published based on what was provided as the text for the Butoh course at the Grotowski Institute, Poland by Tomoe Shizune & Hakutobo, 2018. The Grotowski Institute is engaged in a wide range of research related to physical expression, as well as physical training based on the research of the prominent Polish director Jeray Grotowski (1933-1999) who founded the experimental theater "Teatr Laboratorium" in 1959. The coaction between Tomoe's music and Butoh is highlight.

This work has been long-awaited as a masterpiece which is not performed in public since it was staged 31 years ago in 1989. This valuable video will be recorded in full and will be released for the first time. The story of a seed that fell to one point on the stage, and a tree that grew bravely and dignifiedly there. Amid the sounds of Tomoe Shizune’s exquisitely beautiful Guitar piece, the dancers’ bodies overflow with life and love of nature.

A group of underground rap scene kids from South Florida work together to try to become famous rappers but struggle internally with personal issues regarding home life, growing up and their relationship as a group.