Security Treaty

Silver Wheel (Bicycle in Dream) is a PR film that was produced to promote the export of bicycles. However, Matsumoto Toshio, who was an employee of the Shin-riken Pictures, which had been contracted to produce the film, asked for the cooperation of Yamaguchi Katsuhiro, Kitadai Shozo and Takemitsu Toru, at the time members of Jikken Kobo, and also invited the participation of Tsuburaya Eiji, the leading expert in the field of special effects. Therefore, this work depicts a young boy’s dreams concerning a bicycle, while making the most of the realistic and materialistic character of bicycle parts and of surreal and fantasy-like scenes. Due to the course of its production and the fresh images and music used, this was seen as being the first example of experimental cinema in postwar Japan.

Gengobe Satsuma, an exiled samurai cast out as an Asano clan retainer, is given a second chance to join his brothers in arms to become the 48th Ronin against the Shogunate. His faithful servant gathers the 100 ryo required for his acceptance. Gengobe is also in love with a greedy geisha named Koman. About to be sold to another man, Gengobe learns that in order to keep her, her debt is exactly 100 ryo.

There's more to picture than meets the eye in this journey into oriental metaphysical imagery. Starting (in a very Christian manner) with the Word, the film draws an explosion of visible forms, as if a sign of the shattering of shapes in the mundane world. But time is cyclical, of course, and what was once a multitude of sensible realities must eventually return to the Word and, finally, to sheer Color. (Sound of Eye)

The Weavers of Nishijin captures the process of traditional textile manufacture in Nishijin.

Two chaotic series of images, one for each eye. Hipster living, malformed fetuses, war, arts events and pop culture stands for the material.

In 1960s Tokyo, Gonda owns a bar in which the gay, cross-dresser, and trans scenes meet. Gonda is in a relationship with the madam of the bar, Leda. As the younger Eddie starts a passionate affair with Gonda, she ignites the jealousy of Leda, unaware of another kind of history between them.

Repetitive abstract experimental film. A bearded man flickers past a hundred times.

Expansion remixes the images of Matsumoto’s Esctasis into an more colourful psychedelic short.

'Ki or Breathing' is a spare concoction assembled from slow motion shots of nature and set to a score by the much-acclaimed Tohru Takemitsu.

A 20-year-old drifter and a precocious 16-year-old girl slowly form a bond in a small town haunted by its wartime past.

A young man murders his new bride and goes insane. He wakes in an asylum with no memory, left in the hands of two mysterious doctors who relate his condition with his biological identity.

ĀTMAN is a visual tour-de-force based on the idea of the subject at the centre of the circle created by camera positions (480 such positions). Shooting frame-by-frame the filmmaker set up an increasingly rapid circular motion. ĀTMAN is an early Buddhist deity often connected with destruction; the Japanese aspect is stressed by the devil mask of Hangan, from the Noh, and by using both Noh music and the general principle of acceleration often associated with Noh drama.

Towards the end of WWII, a black American pilot is captured and imprisoned by rural Japanese villagers, who await official instructions as to how to proceed with their 'catch'.

Documentary about the relationships between mothers and their children.

In Connection, a static shot of the sky with moving clouds is subdivided into regular geometrical regions, which are then individually (and rhythmically) manipulated.

A mesmerizing trip through the psychedelic vastness of space.