Charts the troubled teenage years of students Yūichi Hasumi and Shūsuke Hoshino, exploring the shifting and complex power dynamics of their relationship against the backdrop of Yūichi's love for the dreamy and abstract music of pop star Lily Chou-Chou.
Sumika Kanzaki
Tokyo schoolgirl Hiromi and her friends engage in a practice known as enjo kosai, or "compensated dating", where older men pay young girls for dates. Hiromi plunges deeper into this world to raise money for an expensive ring.
Six friends are captured and tortured by a murderous family after giving a ride home to a desperate stranger.
Two friends take two prostitutes for a night of pleasure. But the night turns out to be frustrating for all involved, as much bitterness is revealed in their conversation and attitudes, uncovering their anguish and deeper feelings, and the emptiness of their lives.
In 1923, teenager Kim Shun-Pei moves from Cheju Island, in South Korea, to Osaka, in Japan. Along the years, he becomes a cruel, greedy and violent man and builds a factory of kamaboko, processed seafood products, in his poor Korean-Japanese community exploiting his employees.
Martín's lucky hit when he wins the most lucrative prize in television history puts his life upside down.
A disillusioned Natsume arrives at Coin de Rue, a popular Tokyo pastry shop, begging for work. Aiming to become a high-calibre pastry chef, she is determined to overcome both her past and the challenges ahead. Pastry critic Tomura is a frequent visitor to Coin de Rue. Moved by Natsume's persistence, he slowly begins to confront his own painful past aided, of course, by mouthfuls of tasty pastries.
In spring, a girl leaves the island of Hokkaido to attend university in Tokyo. Once there, she is asked to reveal why she wanted to go there in the first place.
A story about the disappearance of Kirishima, a star athlete of the volleyball club, and how his disappearance affects every person in school.
Inga is a mother with the soul of a poet at a crossroads. Her estranged husband Hermann is bereft of emotional support for her in the wake of her recovery from breast cancer, let alone her passion for buying and restoring and house that reminds her of her childhood home. She shares a close bond with her eight-year-old daughter, and though she is troubled by her decaying marriage, she retains a strong spirit of optimism, as expressed in her own writing.
Yueh-chen has an obsession with her classmate Shihao, but is too shy to confess to him directly. She sends in her best friend, Kerou, to act as a go-between, and Shihao ends up falling for Kerou, who is not sure what to think of him.
In a warehouse in the heart of Los Angeles, a dwindling handful of devoted craftspeople maintain more than 80,000 student musical instruments, the largest remaining workshop in America of its kind. Meet four unforgettable characters whose broken-and-repaired lives have been dedicated to bringing so much more than music to the schoolchildren of this city.
High school students Miho and Shouta are preparing for college entrance examinations. Miho comes from an island without even one cram school, while Shouta lives in Tokyo and works a part-time job. Both are striving to pass exams so they can enter college. The pair enroll in Z-Kai's correspondence education courses, and their lives cross before they realize it.
Something is about to change drastically, and the only thing to do is to witness it.
Believing that the world will end that very day, three mental patients Coco, Tsumuji, and Satoru set out upon a journey. Walking upon the tops of the walls of the city, they seek to find a picnic spot with the best vantage point to view the final event.
Only three days before their high school festival, guitarist Kei, drummer Kyoko, and bassist Nozomi are forced to recruit a new lead vocalist for their band. They choose Korean exchange student Son, though her comprehension of Japanese is a bit rough! It's a race against time as the group struggles to learn three tunes for the festival's rock concert—including a classic '80s punk-pop song by the Japanese group The Blue Hearts called "Linda Linda".
An English-German filmmaking couple retreat to Fårö for the summer to each write screenplays for their upcoming films in an act of pilgrimage to the place that inspired Ingmar Bergman. As the summer and their screenplays advance, the lines between reality and fiction start to blur against the backdrop of the Island's wild landscape.
Ji-hae's friend is having problems expressing her feelings to the boy she loves, so she asks Ji-hae to write e-mails to him in her name. As the boy falls in love with her letters, Ji-hae discovers the story of her mother's romance which is remarkably similar to her own circumstances.
The Male Gaze is a new series of releases from New Queer Visions that showcases short LGBTQ films from across the world. The first instalment, First Kiss, brings together five shorts that are based around men experiencing romantic and/or sexual interaction with other men for the first time. It takes in films from Sweden, Indonesia, USA, Australia and France giving a rounded look at how similar experiences are depicted across the world. The films are: Naked [Naken] (2013); Pria (2017); Walk With Me (2018), One Night Only (2018); Michel's Mouse [Tapette] (2016).
A young woman discovers second-wave feminism, while meeting with her estranged half-sister, as they encounter the grief, rage, jealousy and injustice that govern their lives. The academic and political discussion of women's liberation and feminism (as part of the sexual revolution of the 1970s) draws inspiration from 'The Scum Manifesto' by Valerie Solanas and juxtaposes these passage with country music from the same era; notably 'The Pill' by Loretta Lynn, 'Just Because I'm A Woman' by Dolly Parton and, most centrally, 'Stand By Your Man' by Tammy Wynette.
The main character, Baian Fujieda, is a dark hero who has two faces: one as a skilled acupuncturist who saves lives, and the other as a criminal who buries evil that cannot be kept alive for the sake of others. Popular writer Shotaro Ikenami's historical novel series of the same title, on which the film "BAIAN The Assassin, M.D." is based, is a blockbuster bestseller with a total of over 6 million copies in print and has been made into a timeless entertainment film many times in Japan. Many famous actors have played the role of Baian, including Ken Watanabe. The year 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of Shotaro Ikenami's birth. In the anniversary year of 2023, a new "BAIAN The Assassin, M.D." is born.
After stealing a huge stash of drugs, speed freaks Hector and Dorena plan to cook up an enormous batch of crystal meth and get rich quick. Hector's old buddy Merle has the perfect hideout/meth lab: an old, abandoned farmhouse in the woods where no one will ever find them. Unfortunately, no one will hear their screams either. Turns out, they may not be alone after all. It seems this farmhouse is the site of a horrific urban legend. Now, holed up together with nothing to do but snort, smoke and shoot up, the strung-out "cookers" fall prey to paranoia, private demons and terrifying visions which, whether they are hallucinations or hauntings, are equally terrifying and just as deadly!
In the early 1960s, teenager Adam Stafford (Cameron Bright) becomes obsessed with his new neighbor, Catherine Caswell (Gretchen Mol), a divorcée and free spirit. Stafford spies on Caswell as she meets with strange men, and, despite the warnings of his conservative parents, he begins working for her as a gardener. Amid rumors of her affair with President Kennedy, the two become close, but political intrigue surrounding her acquaintances soon infringes on their friendship.
"The Prodigy" tells the story of small-time enforcer Truman Fisher's vicious conflict with a sadistic assassin who has chosen the unwilling Truman to be his successor. The assassin, who goes by the alias Rains and whose exploits have become the source of legend among Truman's underworld colleagues, drives Truman, through the pressure of constant violence and grief, to understand his own capacity for both bloodshed and compassion. Ultimately this reveals to Truman that he as with all of us, must find our place in this world or as Rains would say "our place in this grand design." This action begins quickly as Truman meets with a turncoat from a rival gang. This tense showdown erupts quickly into mayhem, when Rains makes his unexpected entrance. In the wake of the ensuing bloodbath, Truman is forced to reevaluate his own role in the small, violent world he inhabits, suddenly aware that there are larger powers at work which he does not understand...
Dave, nineteen, has just graduated high school, with his three friends: the comical Cyril, the warm hearted but short-tempered Moocher, and the athletic, spiteful but good-hearted Mike. Now, Dave enjoys racing bikes and hopes to race the Italians one day, and even takes up the Italian culture, much to his friends' and parents' annoyance.
Guy is a young film executive who's willing to do whatever it takes to make it in Hollywood. He begins working for famed producer Buddy Ackerman, a domineering, manipulative, coldhearted boss. When Guy also finds out that his cynical girlfriend, Dawn, has been using sex as a career move, he reaches his limit. Guy decides to exact revenge on Buddy by kidnapping him and subjecting him to cruel and unusual punishment.
This is the story of four African-American "yuppies" (a banker, a doctor, a lawyer, and a "playboy") who call themselves "The Brothers". When the playboy gets engaged, the other three friends find themselves having to come to terms with their own issues of commitment and honesty...
Ye Xiang Lun, a talented piano player is a new student at the prestigious Tamkang School. On his first day, he meets Lu Xiao Yu, a pretty girl playing a mysterious piece of music.
Young coal miner Takeda leaves Kyushu in search of a better job in Tokyo, only to fall into the lucrative yet dangerous life of a yakuza.
Mirja must find her place after serving jail time. When she gets a job as a hotel cleaner she starts living a double life. She's torn between her sick mother and her old group of friends, who have always been her real family.
Set during Japan's Shogun era, this film looks at life in a samurai compound where young warriors are trained in swordfighting. A number of interpersonal conflicts are brewing in the training room, all centering around a handsome young samurai named Sozaburo Kano. The school's stern master can choose to intervene, or to let Kano decide his own path.
Alex is going through a midlife crisis and it has become a very difficult time for him. His marriage is struggling, he's worried about his son, and his job of killing people for his family has become the most stressful part of his life. He seeks the help of a therapist and meets a woman in the waiting room that he connects with.
The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, whose husband was one of 80,000 human beings killed in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies.
Visioneer George Washington Winsterhammerman lives a comfortable but monotonous life in this slightly futuristic black comedy. When people start exploding from stress and George is showing early symptoms, he's forced to examine his life. Taking a look at his nice job, his sexless marriage and his resistance to life coaching, George reconsiders the philosophy of happiness through mindless activity.
When her inability to commit leads to a breakup with her girlfriend, opera-loving writer Allegra winds up in the bed of amiable professor Philip. He is so smitten with Allegra that he dumps his lover, Grace, and convinces Allegra to continue their affair. When Allegra meets Grace, sparks fly, and she begins a parallel romance, unaware that her new lover is the woman Philip left to be with her.
Anna Tsuchiya blasts back in time playing an oiran, a top-notched geisha of the Edo period’s Yoshiwara District, navigating brothel politics while trying to cling to the man she loves.
For as long as she could remember, Dakota Skye has been cursed with a super power. She has the ability to see the truth in any lie she hears. From small, harmless white lies, to the more devious kind, they have come from the people that she should trust the most; her family, friends and teachers. These lies have snowballed, leading to her becoming bitter and apathetic towards the world around her.
In a poor district of Edo lives a young samurai named Soza. He has been sent by his clan to avenge the death of his father. He isn't an accomplished swordsman however, and he prefers sharing the life of the residents, teaching the kids how to write etc. When he finally finds the man he is looking for, he will have to decide whether he follows the way of the samurai or chooses peace and reconciliation.