Dynamite Graffiti

The Man Who Went Beyond Manga: Fujio Akatsuka

The late Fujio Akatsuka is revered by many Japanese artists and scholars for his developments to early comedy manga, but his contributions aren't just limited to the world of print media. Featuring commentary from family, friends, colleagues, and celebrity fans, Fujio Akatsuka's story is told with archival footage and animation, showcasing the life of the man who went beyond manga.

Between the White Key and the Black Key

In an audacious reworking of the biopic, this ensemble drama sees jazz pianist Minami Hiroshi’s memoir cleverly reinterpreted into a surreal and playful story about chasing dreams, disillusionment and the inner lives of professional artists. Closer to playing two sides of the same coin than tackling a dual role, Ikematsu Sosuke embodies two versions of Minami – the naïve upstart and the jaded pro – who magically cross paths as they become entangled with a cast of colourful characters in the seedy alleyways and jazz clubs of Ginza over a single night.

Eat And Sleep at Camp Alone

Kento enjoys cooking with canned foods and eating them at a camp-ground. Nanako likes cooking with natural ingredients she obtains herself from nature. The only thing in common between them are that they eat and sleep alone at camp.

Pandora's Box

After Japan's defeat in WWII, "Pandora no hako" follows a young man named Risuke who has contracted tuberculosis. He travels to the countryside to a unique nursing facility to receive treatment for his disease. At the sanatorium all the patients and nurses go by nicknames and Risuke decides to reinvent himself as Hibari. During his stay, Hibari develops realationships with other patients and nurses. After Hibari's friend Tsuikushi gets discharged from the nursing facility, Hibari writes to him about his relationships with Dakesang the chief nurse and Mabo another nurse that is bright and seems to like him.

Sell My Hand

Ookuwa Kitaro is a jack-of-all-trades who travels nationwide across the country working part-time jobs in order to repay his debts, while dealing with all kinds of troublesome situations.

Bungo: Stories of Desire

Omnibus film "Bungo Sasayakana Yokubo" features 6 different short stories set under 2 different themes ("Mitsumerareru Shukujotachi" & "Kokuhaku Suru Shinshitachi").

Pumpkin and Mayonnaise

A struggling, unemployed musician living with his girlfriend looks to improve his life after he discovers how she's been paying the rent.

Vengeance Can Wait

Hidenori and Nanase have lived together for ten years in a tense, platonic relationship. The wheels of change are set in motion when married couple Takao and Azusa move in next door. After Hidenori catches Nanase and Takao having an affair, he becomes obsessed with watching Nanase through a peephole, and planning his cruel revenge.

Strangers in Kyoto

Madoka meets her husband's parents, who run a 450-year-old hand fan shop in the center of Kyoto. Together with her artist friend Anzai, they start an essay manga about the traditional shops in the area. On Madoka's first day minding the store alone, she ends up giving an interview to a TV crew and angering quite a lot of people by being a bit too candid. While Madoka is enamored by Kyoto, she has quite a lot to learn about the unsaid rules and the passive-aggressiveness of the local proprietresses.

In Those Days

Having failed to get into graduate school, with no girlfriend, no money, and no prospects of success with his band, Tsurugi's life has reached rock bottom. One day, after watching the video of Aya Matsuura's song “Momoiro Kataomoi”, he becomes obsessed with the idol singers of “Hello! Project”, and plunges into the idol geek lifestyle. However, as time passes, he and his buddies all find other things just as important as the idols and begin to move on.

Rolling

Kanichi works at wet tissue company in Mito, Japan. He runs into Gondo. 10 years ago, Gondo was fired from his job as a teacher for secretly filming others. He is now with Mihari who works as a hostess. He took away her away from Tokyo. Kanichi falls in love with Mihari at first sight and takes her away from Gondo. Meanwhile, due to a female student on the video Gondo secretly shot, an unexpected disturbance is created.

The Pavillion Salamandre

Four beautiful sisters are entrusted with taking care of Kinjiro, a giant salamander and national treasure. Rumors spread that Kinjiro is an impostor, so a genius x-ray technician is sent to run some tests.

Dias Police: Police from Another Country

About 150,000 illegal entrants live in Tokyo. They are not recognised as refugees and live in poor conditions. To protect themselves, the illegals create a secret organisation. The organisation has a bank which Japanese Financial Services Agency is not involved with, a hospital that is not authorized by Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare and an illegals police force called "Dias Police." The only police officer in the organisation is Saki Kubozuka. His age and nationality is unknown. Saki Kubozuka does not speak much, but he has a warm heart and strong sense of justice. He takes care of the weak and tries to maintain public order.

同じ星の下、それぞれの夜

An fantastic anthology made by Katsuya Tomita, Masanori Tominaga and Tetsuya Mariko for the 4th Okinawa International Movie Festival in 2012.

be found dead

Anthology of stories involving a person finding dead body

目を閉じてギラギラ

Nozomu Kizaki, a man who hates violence and has survived in the underworld by using “sermons” as a weapon. He is also known as “Gandhi Kizaki” (Sho Aikawa). He has given up on the yakuza business, and in order to support those who are struggling to repay their debts, he teaches baseball to children while running the Hope Shokai, a money-lending business. One day, while on a collection mission, Kizaki discovers that one of the debtors is Gota Yagisawa (Takeshi Ayano), a prodigy pitcher who once made his name at the Koshien National Championships. Gota, who had never held a regular job and was mired in debt, is moved by Kizaki's “sermon” and decides to rebuild his life under his guidance. However, the shadow of the Kuroda clan, a yakuza organization, looms behind the pair...

Monsieur Aznavour

From his poor childhood to his rise to fame, from his triumphs to his failures, from Paris to New York, discover the exceptional journey of an artist. Intimate, intense, fragile and indestructible, devoted to his art until the very end, here is one of the most immortal singers of all time: MONSIEUR AZNAVOUR.

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers

The turbulent personal and professional life of actor Peter Sellers (1925-1980), from his beginnings as a comic performer on BBC Radio to his huge success as one of the greatest film comedians of all time; an obsessive artist so dedicated to his work that neglected his loved ones and sacrificed part of his own personality to convincingly create that of his many memorable characters.

Immortal Beloved

A chronicle of the life of infamous classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven and his painful struggle with hearing loss. Following Beethoven's death in 1827, his assistant, Schindler, searches for an elusive woman referred to in the composer's love letters as "immortal beloved." As Schindler solves the mystery, a series of flashbacks reveal Beethoven's transformation from passionate young man to troubled musical genius.

Radio

In the racially divided town of Anderson, South Carolina in 1976, football coach Harold Jones spots a mentally disabled African-American young man nicknamed Radio near his practice field and is inspired to befriend him. Soon, Radio is Jones' loyal assistant, and he becomes a student at T.L. Hanna High School. But things start to sour when Coach Jones begins taking guff from parents and fans who feel that his devotion to Radio is getting in the way of the team's quest for a championship.

The Theory of Everything

Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21 years of age. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of – time.

My Friend Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer struggles with a difficult family life as a young boy. During his teenage years he slowly transforms, edging closer to the serial killer he was to become.

The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc

In 1429, a French teenager stood before her King with a message she claimed came from God; that she would defeat the world's greatest army and liberate her country from its political and religious turmoil. As she reclaims God's diminished kingdom, this courageous young woman has various amazing victories until her violent and untimely death.

Cry Freedom

A dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko, a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist.

Pollock

In August of 1949, Life Magazine ran a banner headline that begged the question: "Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" The film is a look back into the life of an extraordinary man, a man who has fittingly been called "an artist dedicated to concealment, a celebrity who nobody knew." As he struggled with self-doubt, engaging in a lonely tug-of-war between needing to express himself and wanting to shut the world out, Pollock began a downward spiral.

Factory Girl

In the mid-1960s, wealthy debutant Edie Sedgwick meets artist Andy Warhol. She joins Warhol's famous Factory and becomes his muse. Although she seems to have it all, Edie cannot have the love she craves from Andy, and she has an affair with a charismatic musician, who pushes her to seek independence from the artist and the milieu.

Pad Man

Upon realizing the extent to which women are affected by their menses, a man sets out to create a sanitary pad machine and to provide inexpensive sanitary pads to the women of rural India.

For a Lost Soldier

In the occupied Netherlands near the end of WWII, a young teenager, Jeroen Boman (Maarten Smit) is sent to the Dutch countryside to avoid the war in Amsterdam. While living with his adopted family, Jeroen meets and becomes friends with a Canadian soldier named Walt Cook, who is stationed at the same town he is staying at. Joroen and Walt spend a lot of time playing around and eventually a romantic relationship develops between them. The boy’s sexual curiosity leads him to have a sexual experience with Walt, an encounter that is shown with some vague detail but without actually showing any nudity, even though sexual intimacy between the two of them is implied. Overall, the movie handles this difficult subject with an elegant style and feeling, without having the adult-child relationship overwhelm the viewer and thus allowing the movie to be seen as just a wartime relationship between two people that marks an important time in a young boy’s life.