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Children Who Draw

Children Who Draw explores the delicate chemistry of school children interacting in an art class through a constant juxtaposition of observational black-and-white portraits of the young children with lyrical passages shot in vivid color exploring their imaginative and expressive paintings. Experimenting with color as an intimate expression of the children’s inner worlds, a tool for deeper psychological investigation, Hani allows his camera to roam freely across the drawings, “de-framing’” and enagaging the artwork in a manner reminiscent of Alain Resnais.

Children Who Draw

6.5 1956
Men with Cameras - Capture the Great Kanto Earthquake

The film is set on September 1th, 1923 , when a huge earthquake hits Tokyo . The quake caused buildings to collapse, and the city was reduced to ashes by fire. The Great Kanto Earthquake killed more than 105,000 people. 100-year-old films recording this catastrophe have been found all over the country.But who filmed the turmoil of Tokyo, chased by raging fires?After investigating, I come across three cameramen. They turned the hand-cranked camera in a trance without being ordered by anyone.

Men with Cameras - Capture the Great Kanto Earthquake

NR 2023
The Golden Cups: One More Time

A music documentary that traced the trajectory of the authentic real power band "The Golden Cups" born from Yokohama / Honmoku where the US military base exists in 1966. The testimonies of the members who look back at that time and the interviews of people who respect them such as Takeshi Kitano, Kiyoshiro Imokano, Yukiyama Sword, and live images at Honmoku where original members resurrected after 31 years since dissolution. Moreover, it is spelled with valuable materials such as a photograph in which the appearance of the "Honmoku Golden Cup" store miraculously was recorded, and a performance scene of regular TV program R & B heaven since 1968.

The Golden Cups: One More Time

NR 2004
Recitation Travelogue - Masterpieces of Japan: Jesus in the Barn

A 2001 Japanese language film directed by Shinji Aoyama, starring Hidetoshi Nishijima. The film screened at Locarno International Film Festival in 2009. Directed by Shinji Aoyama, this installment of NHK’s "Recitation Travelogue" series features actor Hidetoshi Nishijima performing Jun Ishikawa’s postwar classic "Jesus in the Barn". Blending literature, performance, and cinema, the program reimagines Ishikawa’s demanding text through evocative modern landscapes.

Recitation Travelogue - Masterpieces of Japan: Jesus in the Barn

NR 2001
The House of Gay Art

In November 2014, Gengoroh Tagame joined MASSIVE's Anne Ishii and Graham Kolbeins on a pilgrimage to The House of Gay Art. Tucked away in a quiet suburban neighborhood in Saitama Prefecture, the private museum is one of Japan's only institutions devoted to preserving gay art. It's a labor of love, run independently out of the home of the charming curator, and novelist Masahiro Ogizaki. The collection contains more than 150 original drawings, paintings, sculptures and photographs, and an extensive archive of rare books and magazines.

The House of Gay Art

NR 2015
The Man Who Became A Camera: Photographer Takuma Nakahira

With his photography and texts, Takuma Nakahira was a driving force behind Japan’s «political season» during the ‘60s and ‘70s, before suffering an artistic crisis that lead him into a medical emergency in 1977. Having lost a great part of his memory and his ability to speak, photographs became his life. Over a period of three years, the movie follows Nakahira on his daily quest to trace his life in photographs, whether in his Yokohama neighborhood or on a journey to Okinawa, a place visited in a long gone past.

The Man Who Became A Camera: Photographer Takuma Nakahira

NR 2003
Minamata Mandala

After years of dumping industrial wastes from the factory to the ocean, Chisso Chemical Corporation contaminated the area of a small Japanese fishing village with excessive amounts of methylmercury. This highly toxic chemical bioaccumulated in fishes of the local water, which when consumed by the local populace resulted in mercury poisoning. In 1977, Minamata disease certification criteria was set by a strange method that tried not to recognize the rights of environmental disease patients. However, an Osaka court won the case for some patients because of a newly developed theory by medical doctors’ recent experiments and proofs. For decades, these patients struggled within the Japanese judicial system for their rights to receive compensation as victims of environmental disease. Those different aspects of these patients’ lives have been filmed by director Hara for the last 15 years, inspired by the late director Tsuchimoto’s documentary MINAMATA: THE VICTIMS AND THEIR WORLD (1971).

Minamata Mandala

NR 2021
Trace of Breath

Documentary about Sato Teiichi's daily life spent doing everything by hand at his seed shop in Rikuzentakada City, which was devastated by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Filmmaker Komori Haruka handles directing, camera and editing in her feature film directorial debut. Sato's home-cum-shop were swept away by the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. He runs the Sato Seed Shop where he makes everything on his own, including the construction of the prefab building, digging of the well, and creation of the signage, and he also writes a diary using self-taught English about his experiences during the disaster.

Trace of Breath

NR 2017
A Permanent Part-Timer in Distress

The director, twenty-three-year-old Iwabuchi Hiroki, is a permanent part-timer who on weekdays does menial work at a factory for 1,250 yen an hour, and on weekends takes on casual temporary work in Tokyo, a city he is fascinated with. He joins a demonstration demanding rights for permanent part-timers, and is featured on TV as "a poor, unhappy temporary worker." Despite having made his own choice to live as a permanent part-timer, he says that "the days feel like drowning in shallow water." But during the diary-like documentation of his life, something changes...

A Permanent Part-Timer in Distress

NR 2009
A Handful of Salt

A documentary that focuses on the craftspeople who continue to make salt with a technique called Agehama-shiki that has been passed down since ancient times, and the lush natural environment of the northernmost tip of the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture. It is also the feature-length debut of director Ishii Kaori. The process of making salt by collecting sea water and boiling it in a hiragama cauldron temporarily died out during the period of Japan's rapid economic growth following World War II, but one family's efforts to keep it alive has miraculously ensured its continuation. Salt is a vital element of people's lives. The saltmaking artisans who perpetuate their traditions represent a way forward for those of us living in this modern age.

A Handful of Salt

NR 2011
Chizuru

I don’t know how to describe my sister. So instead of conveying with words, I decided to point a camera. The documentary 'Chizuru' was directed by Masakazu Akasaki of Rikkyo University's Department of Body Expression and Cinematic Arts in the School of Contemporary Psychology. This film, planned as his graduation project, is a fresh and gentle family story that continuously filmed Akasaki's sister, Chizuru, who has severe intellectual disabilities and autism, and their mother over the course of a year.

Chizuru

10.0 2011
Going against the Grain in Fukushima

Tenei village is located in Fukushima prefecture's beautiful surrounds. It is 70 kilometers away from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. When the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant failed in March 2011, radioactive particles fell and contaminated the rice fields. But the farmers couldn't just abandon their land as they live on the land and wanted to protect it for future generations. The farmers decided to pursue scientific methods to secure food safety. They were on their own without Government assistance. This film documents their determination and efforts in overcoming an environmental crisis that had never been experienced before.

Going against the Grain in Fukushima

NR 2015
Threads of Time

Anamizu Town, Ishikawa Prefecture, is located in the center of the Noto Peninsula. The population is below 7,000, and the town is in the final stage of population decline, with both young people and the elderly declining. Motoyuki Takii, a former junior high school teacher, lives in a marginal village on a rough road from the center of the town, which is promoting compact cities. Since 2020, he has been publishing a handwritten newspaper, "Tsumugu," and has been sounding the alarm about profit-driven policies and the town's future. The town's traditional fishing method, "Muramachi Yagura," overlooks the calm Anamizu Bay. Patience can be said to be a part of the townspeople's character, but Takii writes, "If we do nothing, nothing will change." The Ishikawa TV crew will highlight the raison d'être of local media through the eyes of the townspeople, highlighting the distorted relationship between the town hall and the town council, where inertia and favoritism are rampant.

Threads of Time

NR 2025
Nuclear Nation

After the 11 March 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster, residents of Futaba, a town in Fukushima Prefecture, are relocated to an abandoned high school in a suburb of Tokyo, 150 miles south. With a clear and compassionate eye, filmmaker Atsushi Funahashi follows the displaced people as they struggle to adapt to their new environment. Among the vivid personalities who emerge are the town mayor, a Moses without a Promised Land; and a farmer who would rather defy the government than abandon his cows to certain starvation.

Nuclear Nation

6.5 2012
Self and Others

In 1983, photographer Gocho Shigeo met an early death at the young age of 36. The view we see reflected in Gocho’s photographic images has become more profound over time since his death and has struck a chord in people’s hearts. While focusing on Gocho’s collection of photographs Self and Others, the film also visits places associated with him, creating a collage with the manuscripts, letters, photographs and voice recordings remaining in an attempt to capture “one more gesture”—a theme pursued by Gocho through photographic expression. This film is neither a critical biography nor a monograph on the photographer. Rather, we are offered a new perception. As if mesmerized, the photographs Gocho left behind captivate us in their gaze.

Self and Others

6.0 2001