In 1908, Director/Producer Shozo Makino (father of Japanese cinema) directed and produced the first dramatic film in Kyoto. “Honnô-ji Gassen” was shot at Shinnyo-Do Temple. Considered a lost film.
Social & External
The people behind it
Ritoku Arashi
Mori Ranmaru
Fukunosuke Nakamura
Oda Nobunaga
After failing to get a commercial gig, Tiwi enrolls herself to a kite competition to earn money so she can help her dad.
A controller in a London cab office looks for a driver to pick up a fare from Victoria Station. The driver who answers has never heard of Victoria Station. And he already has a "passenger on board", albeit a very unusual one.
Sentenced to community service, a privileged and self-consumed young woman encounters a war veteran at a soup kitchen and realizes that she has the potential to support him on his road to wellness, while doing the same for herself.
A short film by Ryan Sutton exploring the concept of changing yourself so much to the point that there is sadly no return.
Two college students, Gabriel and Adrien, are inseparable. On the surface, they are great friends but, in secret, Gabriel has feelings for him. As the two young teenagers face homophobic comrades on the way home, they find themselves helpless and without the possibility of defending themselves. Will this incident lead to the irreparable?
In 1943, Joseph, a Jewish man, was arrested by the Germans in front of his 13-year-old daughter, Suzanne, in the apartment where they were hiding. By abandoning his daughter, Joseph saved her life.
An 80-year-old woman spends her time at a bus station. She’s waiting for the right moment to leave this place forever.
It is the story, the process of becoming more and simultaneously less than human through technology as it follows a few characters through this transformation of becoming.
Chen Hao-Zhi lives alone with his Grandmother who has Alzheimers and has suffered from a stroke. In order to pay the bills and his grandmother's medical expenses, he goes to work in a gay massage parlor. At first, it was just work...but Hao-Zhi soon finds that he is attracted to some of his clientele, and gets pulled into a world where he loses control of things he thought he could handle.
A girl in search of sailors lost in the Pacific.
As closeted teenager, Yuval, loses his mobile phone which is then found by a stranger. When the pair meet at the park, at first the stranger asks for a reward for finding it, but it soon becomes apparent that he wants more than what the boy is prepared to give.
This documentary follows two long-lost Ukrainian friends, Arsalan and Nastya, as they reconnect in Germany after russia's full-scale invasion against Ukraine. Arsalan, an actor now in Frankfurt after time in a refugee camp, and Nastya, journalist and producer who stayed in Kyiv, reflect on the divergent paths their lives have taken due to the war. Through their conversations and therapy sessions, the film explores themes of displacement, identity, and the emotional impact of war on youth.
A student in her final year of high school battles a silent illness, which she hides from her mother, as she continues to be quietly overwhelmed by the pressures of family, peers and society.
Yangon, 1998. A boy and his mother are waiting for the return of the father, a civil servant, to move out another town at Upper Burma. On the last evening the boy tries to understand the complexities of relationships.
Writes Ando, "Oh! My Mother was the first work I made using a newly bought 16mm camera I had purchased with the writer Shuji Terayama in Paris. This piece was selected for the Oberhausen International Film Festival. In 1969, there were, of course, no video cameras like ones we see now, and color TVs were only found at broadcast television studios. I had just been employed at the TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System), and I often snuck into the studios after hours to experiment with the equipment. Oh! My Mother was made using the feedback effect, which is produced by infinitely expanding the image by looping the video."
When a Cook Island school cleaner answers an unusual message on the wall of a girls' toilet cubicle, his life, and the life of the mysterious author, will never be the same again. Based on the Australian short story The Graffiti of Mr Kynyatta by Michael Griffith.
James Dean and Donald Turnupseed, the man whose car killed Dean, meet again for the first time... at the very same intersection where the accident occurred.
When housewife Trina wins the lottery, her comfortable life with her dentist husband John slowly deteriorates, in part by her own increasing paranoia and partly by the machinations of villainous acquaintance Marcus.
After her mother comes back from an extended hospital stay, a young girl begins to envision an ominous monster lurking in her home.
A disheveled, humanoid Moth, drawn into a 24/7 optometrist office by the allure of its neon-light sign, regales the attending physician about his troubling life story and insatiable cravings that led to the demise of his family.
The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped by the lord. Her husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to rescue her.
A rebellious ninja in 17th century Japan takes refuge with a fisherman and his family.
Kenshin has settled into his new life with Kaoru and his other friends when he is approached with a request from the Meiji government. Makoto Shishio, a former assassin like Kenshin, was betrayed, set on fire and left for dead. He survived, and is now in Kyoto, plotting with his gathered warriors to overthrow the new government. Against Kaoru's wishes, Kenshin reluctantly agrees to go to Kyoto and help keep his country from falling back into civil war.
Blind traveler Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a masseur with a fondness for gambling on dice games. When he arrives in a village torn apart by warring gangs, he sets out to protect the townspeople.
A submissive hooker goes about her trade, suffering abuse at the hands of Japanese salarymen and Yakuza types. She's unhappy about her work, and is apparently trying to find some sort of appeasement for the fact that her lover has married.
Struggling to elevate himself from his low caste in 17th century Japan, Miyamoto trains to become a mighty samurai warrior.
A group of travelers is stranded in a small country inn when the river floods during heavy rains. As the bad weather continues, tensions rise amongst the trapped travelers.
Set during Japan's Shogun era, this film looks at life in a samurai compound where young warriors are trained in swordfighting. A number of interpersonal conflicts are brewing in the training room, all centering on a handsome young samurai named Sozaburo Kano. The school's stern master can choose to intervene, or to let Kano decide his own path.
After years on the road establishing his reputation as Japan's greatest fencer, Takezo returns to Kyoto. Otsu waits for him, yet he has come not for her but to challenge the leader of the region's finest school of fencing. To prove his valor and skill, he walks deliberately into ambushes set up by the school's followers.
Kyôko, a traumatized young Japanese girl, finds herself struggling with her self-confidence in her adult life. Growing up in a family without her mother and her sister, she constantly questions the rationale of sex and the notion of liberty in modern Japanese society.
In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady Wakasa, as well as Tobei's desire to become a samurai, run the risk of destroying both themselves and their wives, Miyagi and Ohama.
Kakunoshin, renowned for his skills with a sword and in the game of go, embodies the samurai code. Falsely accused of a theft, he is forced to become a lowly ronin. Years later, when a case of missing gold pulls him into a new web of intrigue, Kakunoshin uncovers the truth behind his downfall. With the real culprit exposed, the go board flips, and a hellstorm of righteous vengeance follows.
Wishing to find peace, Zatoichi travels to his old village but only finds trouble when he ends up in a love triangle and finds old scores have followed him home.
After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor.
In 1879, Kenshin and his allies face their strongest enemy yet: his former brother-in-law Enishi Yukishiro and his minions, who've vowed their revenge.
Older, wiser but still a wandering loner, the blind, peace-loving masseur Ichi seeks a peaceful life in a rural village. When he's caught in the middle of a power struggle between two rival Yakuza clans, his reputation as a deadly defender of the innocent is put to the ultimate test in a series of sword-slashing showdowns.
A porn magazine editor stumbles upon an amateur gang rape film and, struck by the girl's acting, decides to find her.
Manji, a highly skilled samurai, becomes cursed with immortality after a legendary battle. Haunted by the brutal murder of his sister, Manji knows that only fighting evil will regain his soul. He promises to help a young girl named Rin avenge her parents, who were killed by a group of master swordsmen led by ruthless warrior Anotsu. The mission will change Manji in ways he could never imagine.
A ronin desperately seeks a way out of financial straits; he allies with the Tosa clan under the ruthless leader Takechi, who quickly takes advantage.
Zatoichi treks to a village that has always been a favorite spot of his, only to discover that it’s become a living hell, plagued by feuding father and son yakuza as well as the younger crime boss’s bodyguard, scruffy, smart-mouthed, cash-hungry Yojimbo of legend.