Natsuko Aoike

'Ikigai' follows Mayumi, a 9-year-old girl, as she tries to find balance in her Japanese identity and American nationality. Hanako, her mother who celebrates their culture through Nihon Buyo, sees Mayumi's new school as an opportunity to share their culture with the white students. When Mayumi is assigned a show-and-tell presentation, she takes it as a chance to prove to her classmates that she is not that different from them. But, that plan is soon ruined when Hanako unexpectedly shows up and teaches the class a Japanese dance, embarrassing and exposing Mayumi's cultural background. After coming home ashamed of her mother and Japanese identity, Mayumi receives guidance from her parents that motivates her to return to school and redo her show and tell in a way that would make her ancestors proud.

Miles Night, an actor based out in Los Angeles, reflects upon moments that have shaped his life. He explores what continues to define himself as an artist.

In the pressure-cooker of opening night, a Japanese playwright struggles with his aging, arrogant actor father for control of the play and their relationship.

A desperate father tries his best to wake up his wife who's in a coma.

Desperate to get her life back to normal after a surprisingly uncommon medical diagnosis, Ashley Jones is forced to examine what "normalcy" really means in a world of mistaken identities, very old, old friends, and poisoned meatballs.

After being fired from media conglomerate, Juban TV, due to creative differences, Cameron takes it upon himself to start his own TV company, Ginger Root Productions.

A phone booth on an ocean cliffside brings together seven strangers whose seemingly different conversations are connected by one harrowing reality.

After waking up from a thirty year sleep, a man finds himself in a unfamiliar setting. Challenged by the course of time, he must re-establish a connection to the present day and make amends with the world left behind.