Masaki Tamura

In this humorous paean to the joys of food, a pair of truck drivers happen onto a decrepit roadside shop selling ramen noodles. The widowed owner, Tampopo, begs them to help her turn her establishment into a paragon of the "art of noodle-soup making". Interspersed are satirical vignettes about the importance of food to different aspects of human life.

A college student has an affair with a married, middle-aged teacher.

Shortly after moving to the suburbs, the Kobayashis start to come undone. Convinced a family curse is at the root of their erratic behavior, the man of the house takes it upon himself to course-correct before it takes the last of their sanity.

A magical realist story of the legendary Okinawan hero Untamagiru participating in efforts to form an independent Okinawa before the island was returned to Japan in 1972.

A strikingly beautiful young woman is trained from birth to be a deadly instrument of revenge against the swindlers who destroyed her family.

In rural Japan, the survivors of a tragedy converge and attempt to overcome their damaged selves, all while a serial killer is on the loose.

After killing the man he believes murdered his daughter, a white-collar worker returns to his mundane life, until he's approached by a man offering a mysterious job opportunity.

Tatsuo, a reverent lumberjack, seeks to disrupt plans to build a marine park on his family land, instead promoting his traditions in reactionary ways.

With the help of a mysterious acquaintance, a former low-level yakuza tracks down and kidnaps the man he believes kidnapped and murdered his daughter, but others are soon implicated in the death.

Abandoned by his mother, Kenji scrapes out a meager existence doing odd jobs, including driving bar hostesses and their customers home. Besides this, he cares for the sister of an incarcerated friend and a young illegal immigrant. Eventually, his life reaches a turning point.

A talk show hostess takes a camera crew out to an abandoned factory to investigate a purported snuff film that was made there. As she gets closer to the truth, she and her friends are subjected to a brutal nightmare.

A.D. 2015: A virus spreads in many cities globally, a suicidal disease infected by pictures. Once infected, the diseased will soon meet death. They have no way of fighting back, filled with fear and despair. The media calls it the 'Lemming Syndrome'.

A bright, attractive, and driven young woman is intent on marrying her tall, handsome, and dreamy boyfriend. However, he abruptly dumps her.

Three couples stay at a lakeside cottage with their children. They want them to prepare intensely for a prestigious high school entrance exam with the help of a private tutor. One night, one of the wives confesses to her husband that she has killed his mistress.

In the final days of World War II, a 15-year-old boy grappling with survivor's guilt watches a rural Japanese community quietly fracture under the heavy emotional tolls of war.

Three high-school students tangle with indulgent yakuza and lackadaisical police as they set out in search of the class bully, who has been kidnapped.

Kaoru, a wealthy woman whose youth is fading, abandons the hustle and bustle of the city to live peacefully in a home on the coast. There, she takes care of an old deaf, dumb and blind man as if he were an insect, a child or a pet. He can’t do anything for himself, so she feeds him and accompanies him on his walks. This strong mutual dependency offers Kaoru an escape from society and allows her to free herself from restrictions imposed by common sense.

Yukio is an ex-farmer working as a dump-truck driver in Kashima. Haunted by the drowning of his two young sons, whose names he has had tattooed on his back in penance, and locked in a sibling rivalry with his traditional but urbane younger brother who lives in Tokyo, Yukio has become an amphetamine-addicted loner at odds with his family, friends and colleagues.

"Shadow of Sand" - Set in Tokyo in the 1980's. Yukie, a young woman lives with the vision of the lover she has murdered. After his death he continues to appear in her room. Yukie maintains her usual life, trying to avoid discovery of her crime until a new lover turns up.

Kenji Nakagami, one of the most notable Japanese writers of the post-war, died in 1992. His work reveals a strong connection to his homeland, Kishu: a mountainous region that connects to the Pacific Ocean through a river. "To The Alley" (alternative title) is a documentary about Kenji's life. Incorporating 16 mm images from the writer's personal archive and adding new footage, director Shinji Aoyama travels through the paths of the life and art of the Japanese writer.

This is Ogawa Productions’ first major film from their Yamagata period. They had already started photography on Magino Village -A Tale but they were drawn to this village deep in the high country above Magino when a particularly cold bout of weather threatened crops. Inevitably, their attention strayed from the impact of weather and geography on the harvest to the “life history” of Furuyashiki Village. On the one hand, Ogawa returns to his roots by playing with the conventions of the science film. At the same time, he discovers a local, peripheral space in which to think about the nation and the state of village Japan. From this “distant perspective” in the very heart of the Japanese mountains, Ogawa discovers a village still dealing with the trauma of global warfare and struggling for survival as their children flee for the cities.

A salaryman debates selling his grandfather's land to pay off his father's debt.

Believing his boss double-crossed him, recently released gangster Yasuo is on his way to find the betrayer, but before setting out, he asks Kenji to care for his mentally challenged sister and a mysterious black bag.

A woman from rural Japan marries a struggling cartoonist in Tokyo. Their life is difficult before he finds success, but at least they're together.

One day, a middle-aged man, Fujimoto Makoto, is standing on a train platform, about to jump in front of a train. Nakashiro Kana and Tasaki Shota both happen to be on the same platform, and sensing what is about to happen, they quickly pull him back to safety. There's a reason why Kana and Shota realized Makoto's intentions, they both have the kind of emotional scars that can't be put into words. Even after so much pain, through a series of e-mails, they've become attracted to one another and slowly learn to open up their hearts once again.