Ena Koshino

Japan around 1860: popular courtesan Asagiri will be freed soon from her service, yet she cannot imagine any other existence. Until one day at a local festival, Asagiri meets the young artisan Hanjiro by chance – an encounter that changes her destiny. With a strong performance by leading actress Yumi ADACHI and exquisite camerawork and production design, A COURTESAN WITH FLOWERED SKIN succeeds in recalling the golden age of Japanese erotic film.

With his brother Shou running from the law for attempted murder, Tooru is forced to hide from society, with the past constantly casting a shadow over him.

Based on the novel "Kanojo no Jinsei wa Machigai ja Nai" (literal translation: Her life is not at fault) by Director Hiroki, it is a powerful story of survivors, who are all trying to find their own silver linings in life.

Aki is an unsuccessful 29-year-old actress who eventually became a magician's assistant. While pretending to be hypnotised on the stage, Aki finds the boundary between reality and illusion becoming increasingly vague. For Aki, the only beautiful memory she has was the time spent with her lover Kaito.

Whimsical film in which students and teachers come together during a weekend for a wedding. The film flutters back and forth between the various characters and their feelings until the wedding starts. Shot in the old beach hotel where the great Ozu wrote his screenplays. © iffr.com

Based on the award-winning novel of the same name, this portrait of a group of vulnerable, variously wounded people — a depressed housewife, her high-school-aged lover, and his best friend, who is struggling to provide for himself and his senile grandmother — whose intersecting lives yield both sorrow and a fragile, yet enduring, hope for a brighter future.

Story follows high school student Saki Miyanaga and her classmates as they become absorbed in the game of mahjong. They target an upcoming national competition.

Tamura Yujiro and Hiyori have been married for four years. They look like a happily married couple, but, Hiyori secretly badmouths her husband on social media page "Husband Death Note."

After failing her university entrance exam, Sakuko is invited by her aunt Mikie to spend summer vacation in a beautiful seaside town. Sakuko gets to know the people of the town, including Takashi, a shy relative of her childhood friend.

A widower and his daughter deal with the death of the man's wife.

Two sisters living on a peach farm in Koori town, Fukushima Prefecture,are opposites. Haruka Miyamoto feels less beautiful than her sister Akiba Miyamoto and hates being compared to her. She finds comfort in playing a piano in a barn. A year after the Great East Japan Earthquake, she decides she wants to be a pianist. Akiba, for her part, moved to Tokyo to attend college. When she moves back to Koori, Haruka is unsettled and memories connected to the disaster she has tried to forget resurface.

Kyoko (Sakura Ando) works as an insurance agent. Due to a series of unfortunate events, she brings shame to her family and has to leave her hometown. Shuichi (Tasuku Emoto) killed his drunken father to save his mother. After he is released from prison, he begins to work at a small factory in Tokyo.

There are Tomoki, Shun, Kazuya, and Aita in Oiso, the seaside town. One day, Tomoki finds their teacher, Ito, who is their teacher and Kajya’s uncle, dead.

A high school girl finds a wallet full of money and tracks down its owner, leading to unexpected consequences for the girl and her friends.

Supermarket cashier Kyoko Umeki works days at checkout and nights at ramen shop Eiraku. Mocked for her body and mistreated by her boyfriend’s family, she faces an unexpected pregnancy—and chooses a new path.

> Story 1: "Missing" > Story 2: "Miss Ringo" (ミスりんご) > Story 3: "Tea Brewer" (お茶をつぐ) Raita is a deaf boy who has just lost his father. His father wanted him to succeed his tea shop, but Raita didn't want to because his relationship with his father was not good. While he was closing the tea shop, Teiji, who is a genius tea blender, came to the shop and challenged Raita to compete on blending the regendally tea which Raita's father was famous for.

Shibasaki Kaori is a doctor. Her patient that she was having an affair with dies. Kaori is suspicious of the patient's son Kido Takashi about the death. Noguchi Tomomi is a single mother. She is excited in experiencing love for the first time in 7 years. Harada Saeko is in conflict with her husband Harada Satoshi about having a child. Mizushima Juri insists on having freewheeling romance. She feels excitement with meeting a woman. These four women's lives connect and an unexpected story begins.

Sometime, the only thing that helps people get over a breakup is the taste of their favorite dish... Set in real restaurants in Tokyo, the taste of the food gently embraces the women’s souls and kindly heals their broken hearts. The main character, Miki (Alice Hirose), is a manga artist. She publishes her work, Heartbreak on a Plate, in a free magazine. Each episode presents the stories of the broken hearts who come to the restaurant, and through the food, we are introduced to their “heartbreak on a plate” experiences. Sometimes comical, sometimes human, the series portrays people who are trying to move forward even after heartbreak. Throughout a total of 10 episodes, the relationship between Miki and a man from the flower shop (Kai Inowaki) gradually evolves into something more.

Daichi has served time for murder, and is now living a life without hope. One day he is suddenly told by his former love that he has an 8 year old daughter called Hana, who is suffering from leukemia. Although he is shocked, when it becomes clear he can save Hana by being her donor, fatherly love overwhelms him and he finds meaning in life again. However, a conspiracy leads to his arrest for murder. Unless he takes the transplant surgery scheduled in two weeks, he can’t save his daughter’s life. Desperate, he starts his great escape.

Nao Kitazawa’s life is good. She is busy working as a doctor at a women’s clinic, and will be getting married in a month to Yuichi Ihara, an older doctor who fits her ideal characteristics of a perfect marriage partner. However, on the day of her move to her new home, she meets Shinji Mamiya, a part-time mover, and is instantly love-struck. After Nao’s aggressive approach, Shinji soon starts to feel the same way. When Nao’s mother, Kaoru, finds out about their mutual feelings, she instantly disapproves saying that their background and level of education are just too different. Just around this time, Nao starts to show signs of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease…

Kishi Minetaro is a skilled and serious-minded plastic surgeon. He looks down on doctors earning money through cosmetic surgeries as well as on women asking for such medical procedures. However, having to repay his father's debt, Minetaro chooses lucrative work at a clinic specializing in aesthetic plastic surgery. The clinic is full of beautiful women, including the director Yukawa Mari, who is well known for her skills in breast reconstruction, a highly-trusted doctor Ichii Mutsumi, and a cheerful nurse Kishitani Aoi. But most of them have already had some work done to their faces, and they strongly believe that “faces are for lives.” Various types of patients visit this clinic. As Minetaro needs to keep this job to continue paying off the debt, he has no choice but to respond to the patients' selfish requests, such as, “I need my previous face back because my husband suspects that I may cheat on him now that I have a surgically-altered, young-looking face,” or “I want to change my face and look different from my twin sister.” But their wishes makes him wonder...If they change their appearances, will their futures become brighter? Will their worries disappear? “Beauty” is the keyword set in this human drama, depicting the true feelings of women through the eyes of a surgeon who isn't attuned to reading a woman's mind.