The story of a teenage boy named Yu, who falls for Yoko, a girl he runs into while working as an "up-skirt" photographer in an offshoot of the porn industry. His attempts to woo her are complicated by a spot of cross-dressing – which convinces Yoko that she is lesbian – dalliances with kung-fu and crime, and a constant struggle with the guilt that's a legacy of his Catholic upbringing.
In Japan, gonzo filmmakers hatch a three-pronged plan to save an actress's career, end a yakuza war and make a hit movie.
Shamoto runs a small tropical fish shop. When his daughter Mitsuko is caught shoplifting at a grocery store a man named Murata steps in to settle things between the girl and the store manager. Murata also runs a tropical fish shop and he and Shamoto soon become friendly. However Murata hides many dark secrets behind his friendly face.
After two teenagers from abusive households befriend each other, their lives take a dark adventure into existentialism, despair, and human frailty.
Tanaka is going through a tough time trying to support his younger sister Mitsuko, recently arrested and hold up in jail. As an investigative reporter, he immerses himself into a story about a shocking murder case gone cold; a family was brutally murdered a year ago and the case remains unsolved.
A story of three escort girls living in Ikebukuro, Tokyo. They work at the same escort service while feeling lonely in their urban lives.
Comingled Containers is an experimental short film by Stan Brakhage. "This 'return to photography' (after several years of only painting film) was made on the eve of cancer surgery - a kind of 'last testament,' if you will… an envisionment of the fleeting complexity of worldly phenomenon."
This work is a 12-year story of Mana, a woman who cannot accept the death of her best friend, staring at her as she tries to step forward while having deep sorrow.
In Depression-era Japan, a courteous bus driver carries an eclectic group of passengers from the mountainous Izu to Tokyo.
A man on the run discovers a mysterious platform that might be the key to his escape
Lynn is a cheerful 22-year-old who works at a cafe and lives with her brother. Though she has no real direction in life, she is happy. Conversely, her boyfriend, David, is a career-driven swimmer who seems to care only about his training. Then Lynn meets Japanese exchange student Koji, and, though they speak different languages and spend most of their time together in silence, the two soon become closer than she and David had ever been.
The erotic novelist Taeko is writing a morbid story of a family destroyed by incest, murder and abuse. Her assistant, Yuji, sets on a mission to uncover the reality of this story, but the reality might be too much to bear.
In a Tokyo love hotel district, a woman is found dead in a derelict apartment. As police investigate, a romance novelist's wife lives a life that seems simply a daily repetition without romance. To break away from the loveless monotony, she follows her desires and becomes a nude model enacting sex in front of a camera. Soon, she meets a mentor and begins selling her body to strangers, while at home, she hides behind the façade that she's still the doting wife she's supposed to be.
Set in Shizuoka and Tokyo, Japan in the late 1980's. Takkun is a university student in Shizuoka attempting to find a job. Mayu is a dental hygienist. They meet through a blind date and begin to date, but Takkun finds a job in Tokyo and goes there. They begin a long distance relationship, but their relationship breaks down.
The story of Shaista, a young man who—newly married to Benazir and living in a camp for displaced persons in Kabul—struggles to balance his dreams of being the first from his tribe to join the Afghan National Army with the responsibilities of starting a family. Even as Shaista’s love for Benazir is palpable, the choices he must make to build a life with her have profound consequences.
Looking for a brighter future in metropolitan Manila, Oscar Ramirez and his family leave their miserable life in the rice terraces of Banaue, in the northern Philippines. In the sweltering capital, where all kind of perils lurk in every corner, Oscar catches a lucky break when he is offered a steady work for an armored truck company and the senior officer Ong takes him under his wing.
In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.
In an alternate Japan, territorial street gangs form opposing factions collectively known as the Tokyo Tribes. The simmering tension between them is about to boil over into all-out war.
A memory-wiped and defective cyborg sex slave is tossed onto the streets and taken in by a homeless woman while his corporate creators hunt him down.
A struggling street photographer, pressured to marry by his grandmother, convinces a shy stranger to pose as his fiancée. The pair develops a connection that transforms them in ways that they could not expect.
Late one evening Alex suddenly abandons his girlfriend, Simone, to pursue the beautiful Aimee. In his encounter with Aimee time and place dissolve for him and he becomes a stranger to Simone, to whom he cannot return.
A tale of sexual encounters of one woman and several friends, family members and acquaintances, as seen (and told) from the perspective of a pair of satin blue panties.
A man obsesses over Rubia as the girl of his dreams, but she is lost in a world of her own as she obsesses after a man who doesn't know she exists.
A young musician travels to Burning Man, a psychedelic festival in the middle of the Nevada desert, in an attempt to get the impetuous girl he has fallen in love with.
A love that seems to be eternal begins to end. Aurelio will do everything possible to make his inheritance fall into the hands of the love of his life, Ricardo, once he dies.
Set in a world where love is deemed illegal and can be eradicated with a special procedure. With 95 days to go until her scheduled treatment, Lena Holoway does the unthinkable, she falls in love.
Manuela and her mother have different ways of perceiving the world they live in. They discuss masculinity, love, and, as if that were not enough, the importance of a sofa.
When a well-known environmental researcher is murdered in the Amazon jungle, an arrogant photojournalist joins forces with a beautiful young activist to find out who is responsible. Along they way, they fall in love as they discover the men responsible for the killing would be more than willing to murder again if it will keep them quiet.
A sort of "Divorce Finnish Style," Mika Kaurismäki's rambunctious comedy, The House of Branching Love , recounts the breakup of a thirty-something professional couple - Juhani, a family therapist, and his wife, Tuula, a successful business trainer.
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.
Baffling serial killings unfold in which the victims are tied up and left to starve. Tone was just released from prison after finishing his sentence for another crime, and he surfaces as a suspect but detective Tomashiro can't nail down conclusive proof.
A background of rising fascism in Venice in 1930s. A music-student, Matthias, mixes with the town's bourgeoisie and falls in love with a mature teacher, Carla, the mother of his friend Renato, and then with his young colleague, Elena.
The ever versatile Kazuki Kitamura stars as masterless samurai Kyutaro Madarame, a feared swordsman who has fallen on hard times in old Edo. Caught between two warring gangs in an epic battle of cat lovers and dog lovers, he begrudgingly accepts the canine faction's offer to assassinate the opposite leader's beloved pet: an adorable white cat. Yet upon raising his lethal sword, he cannot bring himself to go through with the act, and the cat melts his ronin heart. But before finding peace as a newly minted cat person, the still fearsome Madarame will have to take on both gangs in a classic samurai street brawl.
Sawa, a home helper for a middle class family with an elderly infirm grandfather, is forced to stretch her morals to keep her job. As a result, she finds herself broke and out on the street. She survives her first night by striking up an ambiguous friendship with a kindly old man, gaining access to a portion of the immense wealth held by Japan's aging population. She continues with similar encounters, and while these begin as scams or revenge on rampant sexism, they ultimately become vulnerable intergenerational exchanges.
The city's mobile networks are down due to a solar flare, and Vasanth, an inventive youngster, tries to restore it. Mukil can save his lover only if he can get through to her over phone. Meanwhile, a terrorist will be able to activate the bomb he has planted in a taxi if Vasanth succeeds!
Overburdened and stuck in a greying marriage, Giovanna takes to caring for a Jewish Holocaust survivor her husband brings home. As she begins to reflect on her life, she turns to the man who lives across from her.
As young children, half-siblings Axel and Yanne are adopted to Norway. They are separated on arrival, him to material wealth on Oslo's west side, her to an average family on the east side. In contrast to her younger brother, Yanne remembers their journey to Norway, but she has no idea where he might be now.