The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.
Five stories, five maestros, five styles and one common denominator: maximum creativity. Studio 4°C, the coolest label on the planet, invites us for the second time to an exclusive reunion of a talents with a group film, full of freedom and ingenuity, that goes from Mahiro Maeda's classic anime, to Kazuto Nakazawa's intricate urban sketches, Shinya Ohira's bedlam of color and Tatsuyuki Tanaka's animated cyberpunk. And as if that wasn't enough, Koji Morimoto, the studio big boss, is charge of putting the icing on the cake with fantafabulous piece of abstract poetry that would make a VJ die of ecstasy. The party of the year.
Marijuana is the most controversial drug of the 20th Century. Smoked by generations to little discernible ill effect, it continues to be reviled by many governments on Earth. In this Genie Award-winning documentary veteran Canadian director Ron Mann and narrator Woody Harrelson mix humour and historical footage together to recount how the United States has demonized a relatively harmless drug.
Chinese animated fantasy comedy based on classic stories.
A Little man goes to jail, and is everyones punching bag, until with the help of a bug he takes down the biggest meanest guy in prison.
A high school student is haunted by thoughts of "The Matrix" and a person named "Neo".
Aerobics instructor Christie Ryder becomes possessed by the spirit of an evil ninja when she comes to his aid after he was shot down.
In early 1950s Vietnam, a young American becomes entangled in a dangerous love triangle when he falls for the beautiful mistress of a British journalist. As war is waged around them, the trio sinks deeper into a world of drugs, passion, and betrayal where nothing is as it seems.
Wealthy slacker college student Mark, his new girlfriend Sarah, and their friends are invited to a special showing at a mysterious wax museum which displays 18 of the most evil men of all time. After his ex-girlfriend and another friend disappear, Mark becomes suspicious.
In the Sengoku period, a woman and her daughter are raped and murdered by soldiers during a time of civil war. Afterwards, a series of samurai returning from the war through that area are found mysteriously dead with their throats torn out. The governor calls in a wild and fierce young hero to quell what is evidently an Onryō ghost. He encounters the two beautiful women in an eerie, beautiful scene. After spiritual purification, he meets the demon in a thrilling fight.
Errol Morris's unique documentary dramatically re-enacts the crime scene and investigation of a police officer's murder in Dallas.
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.
With his signature pitch-black sense of humor, Ricky Gervais takes the stage at the London Palladium in this provocative stand-up comedy special.
'Toon star Roger is worried that his wife Jessica is playing pattycake with someone else, so the studio hires detective Eddie Valiant to snoop on her. But the stakes are quickly raised when Marvin Acme is found dead and Roger is the prime suspect.
Encouraged by her managers, rising pop star Mima takes on a recurring role on a popular TV show, when suddenly her handlers and collaborators begin turning up murdered.
Newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane is taken from his mother as a boy and made the ward of a rich industrialist. As a result, every well-meaning, tyrannical or self-destructive move he makes for the rest of his life appears in some way to be a reaction to that deeply wounding event.
European mercenaries searching for black powder become embroiled in the defense of the Great Wall of China against a horde of monstrous creatures.
The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
Jacek climbs into the taxi driven by Waldemar, tells him to drive to a remote location, then brutally strangles him, seemingly without motive.
Cole Thornton, a gunfighter for hire, joins forces with an old friend, Sheriff J.P. Harrah. Together with a fighter and a gambler, they help a rancher and his family fight a rival rancher that is trying to steal their water.
A mysterious suicide and a series of unmanned robot run-aways sparks off a Police investigation into the suspicious software on-board thousands of industrial robots around Tokyo.
A Japanese police unit who use giant anthropomorphic robots (called Labors) is caught up in a political struggle between the civilian authorities and the military when a terrorist act is blamed on an Air Force jet. With the aid of a government agent, the team gets close to a terrorist leader to stop things from going out of control when after the military is impelled to impose martial law.
Since 1945, only a select few in the US government have known the truth about UFOs. In 2020, one of them is finally speaking out. Join Dr. Laura Gale PhD on a guided tour through over half a century of disinformation, counterespionage—and mankind's attempts to make first contact.
Haruka finds a cat in an abandoned building and names it "Nyan". Little does she know that this cat is actually "Ultra-Nyan" who has come from outer space. Using his mysterious powers, Ultra-Nyan helps Haruka and her friends foil the plans of a couple of no-good catnappers.
Ultra-Nyan's adventures continue. This time, he is tasked with finding the cause of the crows' sudden declaration of war upon the cats.
Animated short film for Shinsei Kamattechan's song "Ruru's Suicide Show on a Livestream."
Francesca and Joe are astronauts who've become lovers. Bunkered up in their little spaceship, Earth is a distant reality, everything they want is right here. But their mission is ending, and Joe's wife is waiting for him back home. Thinking she's going to lose him, Francesca takes desperate measures, leading to terrible and unintended consequences.
Sofía, a little girl of seven, remembers the day she fractured her arm while being chased through the forest; a story full of fantasy that hides a heart rending moment in Sofía's life.
A member of an elite paramilitary counter-terrorism unit becomes traumatized after witnessing the suicide bombing of a young girl and is forced to undergo retraining. However, unbeknownst to him, he becomes a key player in a dispute between rival police divisions, as he finds himself increasingly involved with the sister of the girl he saw die.
The dance floor of a cruise ship. As each passenger is chosen, they choose a song on the jukebox and dance to it. But one passenger, playing a joke on another, selects a different song first. He keeps choosing that song, and eventually fills the jukebox with coins. It plays the same song over and over, and everyone is compelled to dance with the ship itself getting sick, while the man who was the brunt of the joke escapes in a rowboat.
A bird requires some assistance for his migratory flight south, but things don't quite go as planned.
A family of three is travelling in space, when they encounter a stranded spaceship. They manage to pull out one survivor (Grieco) who's in shock. However, when the father goes on to investigate the ship, he finds that everyone was murdered. Suddenly, the stranger leaves him on the damaged spaceship and starts to terrorize his wife and daughter, for it turns out that the stranger is really an emotionally unstable android programmed without morals, making him go on a killer rampage. Who will survive?
Albert thinks he is old enough to get a dog, as he's now seven. He tries to convince dad that he's not too young, even if he has an imaginary best friend to help him solve his problems. He gets new hope, when he gets to know a magician. But is magic what's needed to get father's understanding and a dog?
Bonnie & Max are crew members of Pirate Zap's ship. They're tired of the life they're in a want to escape. Only problem is they have no money. Three child hostages over heard their conversation and the eldest, Amanda knows where Bonnie & Max can get loaded. As her father was a pro treasure hunter who hid a treasure and made a deal that they can have it. Max & Bonnie agreed and sneaked away with the 3 kids. And spent one month on the small island on where the treasure is said to be. Luffy and his crew got involved with the conflict. And end up battling against the Bayan & Zap Pirates who both want the same thing. And Amanda is the key to locating the treasure. Will the treasure be claimed by the right people?
Scrappy does not want to get up and go to school. As the days peel off his calendar, the holidays come to life, personified. Father Time takes Scrappy on a tour through Holiday Land.
Legendary boxer Keijiro Akagi's second son, Eiji, is a high school dropout and the world's worst rock guitarist. Though his father and elder brother are both boxers, he hates the sport but suddenly takes an interest in it when he meets the local champion's little sister.