Naomi Kawase

Love & Pop

Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends engage in a practice known as enjo kosai, or "compensated dating", where older men pay young girls for dates. Hiromi plunges deeper into this world to raise money for an expensive ring.

Still the Water

On the Japanese island of Amami, despite lacking parental guidance, Kaito and his girlfriend Kyoko try to find their place in the world. While Kaito suffers from the absence of his father, who moved to Tokyo after his birth, Kyoko must come to grips with her mother’s terminal illness.

Sweet Bean

The master of a dorayaki pastry store hires a 76-year-old woman whose talents attract customers from all over. But she's hiding a troubling secret. Life's joys are found in the little details, and no matter what may be weighing you down, everyone loves a good pastry.

Emergency Exit

It tells how 14 characters travel in a mysterious vehicle that they cannot easily get out of. Along the way, they fabricate about their identity and travel through unreal landscapes on a journey between life and death, sleep and wakefulness. According to the synopsis, "a tragicomedy with no certainties".

True Mothers

After suffering through a long and unsuccessful series of fertility treatments, Satoko and her husband Kiyokazu make the decision to adopt a child. Six years after adopting a boy they named Asato, Satoko has quit her job to concentrate fully on her husband and son. The family lives a peaceful existence until the arrival of a stranger.

3.11 A Sense of Home Films

In memory of the Japanese earthquake on 3.11, each director presents a 3 minute and 11 second short film in tribute to those who were lost that day.

The Moon

In the form of a fiction, Naomi Kawase delivers a self-portrait which is also a re-crossing of her earlier films. The old city of Nara, the first capital of Japan where Naomi Kawase is from and where she still lives, opens up a reverie where past, present and future meet. In its winding streets mingle the "Haré" of days of celebration and ceremony and the "Ké" of everyday life.

Yakushima's Illusion

Corry, a French coordinator of pediatric heart transplants is sent to Japan where organ donation remains taboo. As she fights to save a young boy, her partner Jin, a photographer from Yakushima, suddenly vanishes.

Love & Pop

Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends engage in a practice known as enjo kosai, or "compensated dating", where older men pay young girls for dates. Hiromi plunges deeper into this world to raise money for an expensive ring.

Still the Water

On the Japanese island of Amami, despite lacking parental guidance, Kaito and his girlfriend Kyoko try to find their place in the world. While Kaito suffers from the absence of his father, who moved to Tokyo after his birth, Kyoko must come to grips with her mother’s terminal illness.

Sweet Bean

The master of a dorayaki pastry store hires a 76-year-old woman whose talents attract customers from all over. But she's hiding a troubling secret. Life's joys are found in the little details, and no matter what may be weighing you down, everyone loves a good pastry.

Emergency Exit

It tells how 14 characters travel in a mysterious vehicle that they cannot easily get out of. Along the way, they fabricate about their identity and travel through unreal landscapes on a journey between life and death, sleep and wakefulness. According to the synopsis, "a tragicomedy with no certainties".

True Mothers

After suffering through a long and unsuccessful series of fertility treatments, Satoko and her husband Kiyokazu make the decision to adopt a child. Six years after adopting a boy they named Asato, Satoko has quit her job to concentrate fully on her husband and son. The family lives a peaceful existence until the arrival of a stranger.

3.11 A Sense of Home Films

In memory of the Japanese earthquake on 3.11, each director presents a 3 minute and 11 second short film in tribute to those who were lost that day.

The Moon

In the form of a fiction, Naomi Kawase delivers a self-portrait which is also a re-crossing of her earlier films. The old city of Nara, the first capital of Japan where Naomi Kawase is from and where she still lives, opens up a reverie where past, present and future meet. In its winding streets mingle the "Haré" of days of celebration and ceremony and the "Ké" of everyday life.

Yakushima's Illusion

Corry, a French coordinator of pediatric heart transplants is sent to Japan where organ donation remains taboo. As she fights to save a young boy, her partner Jin, a photographer from Yakushima, suddenly vanishes.

The Mourning Forest

A young woman working at a retirement home takes an elderly man living there on an excursion into the countryside, but the two wind up stranded in the titular forest.

Echoes of Motherhood

The love and conflicts between mother and daughter, and between husband and wife. The final chapter of Nakagawa Ryutaro's trilogy, depicting the forms of love that endure through loss and rebirth.

Firefly

Emotionally withdrawn strip club dancer Ayako has never recovered from her mother's suicide when she was young. She begins a relationship with patient potter Daiji, but leaves him behind when she quits her job and returns to her home town after a 10 year absence.

Transit in Flamingo

Under the vast, open sky of Uda City in Nara, three young strangers meet by chance - Sae, who has just been abandoned by her boyfriend who moved with her, Akari, who has come to find the infamous flamingos her best friend Kyon-chan once spoke of, and Ryutaro, who has never once left his hometown and spends his days living in tedium. Koe and Ryutaro decide to join Akari on her journey. The hearts of these three strangers mingle for only a day; a brief but memorable encounter that will follow them for life.

Radiance

The story follows the social intercourse between a cameraman, Masaya, with a visual impairment, and Misako who disconnects from the world.

Women Make Films

Lies

This is the story about the life and artistic views of a designer through an interview that’s replete with poetic dialogue.

It Stopped Raining

A young bioarchaeologist Yukisuke is attracted to a girl Koyomi, who runs a small stand of taiyaki pastry that he often buys. Koyomi is hospitalized, however, by a car accident on a rainy day after they go out together, and wakes up with short term memory loss, where she cannot remember anything beyond the present day. Yukisuke tries to live close to her as before but the lack of collective memory starts to stagger him.

Vision

Centres on Jeanne, a journalist tracking a mysterious rare herb that appears only once every 997 years.

Cinema Fighters

Six stories based on six songs, the first project of Cinema Fighters.

Suzaku

Depicts the life of a family in a remote Japanese timber village. Family head Tahara Kozo lives with his mother Sachiko, wife Yasuyo, nephew Eisuke and young daughter Michiru. Economic recession and failed development plans cause tragedy in the family.

Shara

The Aso family live in the old town of Nara. One Day, Kei, one of the Aso's twin boys suddenly disappears. Five years later seventeen-year old Shun, the remaining twin, is an art student. He now has to move forward with his life, together with his childhood friend, Yu.

The Nikaidos' Fall

After losing his son, Tatsuya is anguished by the danger of his ancient family line coming to an end. His mother Haru urges him to embark on a loveless second marriage, and meanwhile he secretly hopes that his daughter Yoshiko will marry a husband willing to adopt the Nikaido name and follow in his footsteps.

The Wolf, the Fox, and the Leopard

When a girl raised by wolves is found in the woods, she must learn to forge her own path as those around her try to exploit her for their own purposes.

Destroy Vicious

A Midsummer's Fantasia

Reality and fantasy melds as a Korean documentary film director attempts to capture life in the small town of Gojo, Japan.

Welcome Back For An Extracurricular Lesson, Sempai

Homemade

Acclaimed filmmakers from around the world channel their creativity during COVID-19 isolation with this diverse, genre-spanning collection of short films.

What Kento Nakajima Wants to Know About Movies Now

A "movie" that is a mirror of the times. At the forefront of the movie, there are "important things" to know now ... Kento Nakajima learns about such "movie now" through interviews and on-site interviews.