Combining documentary with experimental video, "Grace Period" documents the activities of female sex workers in the Yeongdeungpo red-light district in Seoul, South Korea. Facing constant police crackdowns and the threat of permanent closure following the opening of a massive shopping complex adjacent to their workplaces, the women of Yeongdeungpo band together in protest. Archival footage, mostly shot by the women themselves, shows their collective efforts as they organize with other sex workers from brothels across the country. In creative and daring acts of resistance, they launch a series of demonstrations that trace a lineage to Korea's democratic union movements of the 1980s-- denouncing the government and corporate interests, demanding decriminalization, and declaring their rights as workers.
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Chūson-ji
A making-of documentary focusing on the collaboration between director Kanji Nakajima and cinematographer Hideho Urata in the 2008 film The Clone Returns Home. Released in the 2010 DVD Premium Edition as a bonus disc.
Making of The Clone Returns Home
In the first 30 years of the PRC, in order to maintain and consolidate CCP’s rule, political campaigns were frequently launched. Landowner Liu Wencai’s home in Sichuan province became the "Landlord Manor Exhibition Hall," serving to educate people about the class struggle. Tens of thousands visited daily. The cluster of sculptures entitled "Rent Collection Courtyard" was the subject of a documentary film and the prototype for copies of statues exhibited across the country. The overwhelming media publicity turned Liu Wencai into the representative of the "heinous crimes" of the landlord class and he became a household name, influencing several generations. Liu Xiaofei, grandson of Liu Wencai, has suffered from injustice since his childhood and began his interviews and investigations into this catastrophe for his family twenty years ago, in order to “clear” the charges against his grandfather and restore the historical truth.
My Grandfather Liu Wencai
Experimental movie about the Japanese punk band Deformer
Acid Sports in Japan
The Human Mind
At 46 years old, she's been supporting her children and husband. Kyung-ah, a housewife who wants to be a woman instead of a mother! Ji-young, a Korean language instructor who has been naturally frail and sickly since she was a child! After meeting pole, she becomes a master pole dancer! Hwa-young, an actress who was most afraid of her talent at the audition! Pole dancing is now her specialty! For them, pole dancing is no longer just a hobby, but a way of life! Follow the ups and downs of the average 40-year-old pole dancers as they face the challenges of the 2021 PICK Pole Dance Competition!
Wonderpole
Throughout his life, he has been active on four continents, fighting against three regimes. Some say he was ""Don Quixote, who dreams the impossible dreams;"" others say he was ""Che GUEVARA, the only remaining active revolutionary in East Asia."" However, the leader he privately admires is Arafat. His whole life was on the run. Now 97 years old, blind in one eye, figure stooped, he is still combating vigorously, his legend continues...
Su Beng, the Revolutionist
A steam locomotive that runs on a trip and the beautiful four seasons of Japan.
The Wonderful World of Steam Locomotive
Emerging from a period of withdrawal, a social recluse or ‘hikikomori’ relates her inner experiences against the backdrop of an illuminated and restless urban environment that never sleeps.
DIALOGUE
北纬39°
When the Pomegranate Flowers Bloom
Villagers' Choice
Baroque grotesque mondo documentary about 2 japanesse friends going to india taking pics of handicapped indians and hiring prostitutes.
Wonderful Friends In India Part 2
Twenty plus classmates look back into the past, tracing back through a 30 year history. One after another adapts to the random events that come to shape their lives, to the four seasons of life and nature. The years they were about experience coincided with the reforms and opening up of China. Floating in the changes of the new era, some experience compromises and the loss of ideals, whilst some keep struggling ahead with great determination. Thirty years later, Lin Xin encounters his old classmates, and records their individual lives and history; the ease of monotony, the loneliness of success, the weariness of a life of plentiful, the helplessness of poverty... all come forth in the lives of these group of people, becoming an epitome of the lives of ordinary people in small to middle-sized cities in this era, and at the same time reflecting on a generation that advances forward undefeated.
Classmates
Between 1959 and 1961, more than 35 million people starved to death because of Mao’s Great Leap Forward policies. To avoid censorship in China, this painful period is now euphemistically referred to as the “Three Years of Natural Disasters.” This courageous oral history, directed by Zhang Mengqi, tells the story from the point of view of her grandfather’s village, to which she returns every winter to interview survivors. Central is moving voice-overs from a grandmother who details harrowing pregnancies and lonely births during the Great Famine and her granddaughter, a migrant worker. In this agricultural village, the landscape is stark yet beautiful with plenty of room for contemplation. When a hand appears in front of the camera, Zhang transitions into a delightfully playful territory, incorporating a uniquely participatory experience that extends beyond the screen.
Self Portrait: Birth in 47 KM
Yamamoto Senji fought against the Peace Preservation Law in the Diet. On March 5, 1929 he was assassinated by the right wing. A farewell ceremony was held near the University of Tokyo. Prokino's Tokyo Branch shot the procession.
Yamamoto Senji's Farewell Ceremony
Interviews with Burakumin in Osaka, victims of discrimination
Ningen no machi
Love Before Sunset
"Was it the President who ordered the rivers to be six meters deep?" In 2008, under President Lee Myung-bak's administration, South Korea's Four Major Rivers Restoration Project turned the country's beautiful rivers into scenes of devastation. What were once pristine first-grade waters became lifeless rivers, choked with toxic green algae emitting foul odors. Crops irrigated with this contaminated water are now served on the table of Korean people. The government disguised a grand canal project as river restoration, and the media turned a blind eye — together enabling one of the greatest environmental destructions in Korean history. The consequences of this deception will be borne by future generations. To ensure that future generations can once again run freely along the rivers, we must act—now. We must make Korea's rivers flow again.
White Elephant in the River
A background study of a dying amusement culture, filmed in slovenly dressing rooms in front of badly polished make-up mirrors. – That’s how far editor Mary Stephen follows director Yoichiro Okutani’s montage interpretation of his own footage about the Japanese strippers called Odoriko. But Stephen’s editor’s cut begins fully dressed: a tastefully lit stage overture in costume, starting from which she rearranges or rather sheds the material, reintegrating image and sound sequences originally discarded by Okutani, for example the titular statement of an Odoriko explaining her choice of profession: “It was about being nude at heart.”
Nude at Heart
Adil Hoxur, descended from a line of Dawaz tightrope artists, performs nightly with his troupe in China’s Taklamakan desert, among the Uyghurs, a Turkic Muslim people seeking religious and political autonomy. Shot over four months, this experimental documentary takes shape as a travelogue, ethnographic visual poem, and advocacy video for the preservation of a traditional art form. - MoMA
Kings of the Sky
In the third year of the Yoon Sukyeol administration, the nation was already at a boiling point. A move to end democracy backfired, opening the plaza. This records the accidental Namtaeryeong plaza on a winter solstice night and the struggle to carry its spirit into everyday life.
The Longest Night: Namtaeryeong
장추화 무용
A documentary about shamate, a wildly controversial subculture that emerged in China in the late ’00s.
We Were Smart
Invisible World
The first documentary of Japanese band SHISHAMO.
SHISHAMO NO, URAGAWA
It is criticized that the resident card, which has been implemented since 1968, is in fact only a fascistic system of state power to classify and control the people. Fingerprinting is the most essential part of the control process, and the work explains that only after completing the humiliating fingerprinting process can you enjoy your rights and duties as a 'citizen'. The director is a person who has participated in the opposition to fingerprinting since May 2000. The movement of the work follows Lee's struggle leading up to the administrative lawsuit, intersecting the arguments of the government and the logic of opponents of the resident card.
Rip It Up!
Guan Kuanyi is seventy-six years old this year, and is the only surviving shaman of the Elunchun. Every first or fifteenth day, Guankani put tribute on the throne and worshiped the gods in the traditional way. After recovering from an illness, Guan Kuanyi had a mindset and hoped that in his lifetime, he could find a shaman's heir and inherit this ancient religious culture. But the young people no longer believe in the gods, which has become the biggest obstacle for Guan Kanni to find his heir. She focused on her daughter, Daisy, and her son, Rongrong ... Recording Notes November 22, 2007 In the morning, the world has become quiet, silent, simple and pure. I began to enter the state, into the world of shaman.
Divine Doctor
Arakinema KaoRi Iro Injo by Nobuyoshi Araki. A labyrinth of overlapping colors. KaoRi and Araki's dance.
Arakinema KaoRi Iro Injo
9 Days in the Summer
Paradise revisits South Korea’s era of authoritarian development (1970s-1980s) through the lens of queer livelihood. Despite the harsh realities of successive dictatorships, compulsory military service, and expectations of marriage and childbirth, six elderly gay men reveal how they converted second-run theaters and nearby bars into popular sites of erotic liberation, same-sex friendships, and romantic encounters.
Paradise
Hip Hip Hooray!
Mr. Pink Discusses the Groper Train series in this short documentary. Produced by Pink Eiga Inc.
Riding the Groper Train Part 1: What Is Groper Train?
In the year of 1996, a national weightlifter coach called A-Fu, founded a female teenager weightlifting team with three Bunun girls from the "Taoyuan Tribe". They're either orphaned or raised by a single parent or grandparents. Despite their success in weightlifting, they are confronted with the harsh reality of their family situations, career development and love lives.
The Weight of Life
Japan has a recidivism rate of 50%. The staff at a magazine called CHANGE want to lower that by rehabilitating former prisoners. This forms the basis of FUNAHASHI Atsushi’s ensemble docudrama, which tells the story from both the perspectives of the editorial team and ex-cons.
The Burden of the Past
In a city that worships money, there is a group of people who still insist on living the philosophy of "people are not living on food alone." Instead of choosing to live in seclusion, they choose to actively enter the world, improve their hearts, and influence others through artistic creation. Their innovation has not only driven the art world in Hong Kong but more importantly, through their enthusiasm for creation, they have made us understand that as long as we have a "heart", no matter how difficult the environment is, we can persist in a "love".
HOMECOMING
Relationships with mothers who live together and fathers and siblings who live apart. During a period of dizzying changes, such as finding a job and moving to Tokyo, she confronts the world as she sees it now, with her own camera. We want to cheer her on as she heads into the future beyond. Goodbye!
Goodbye!
Father had been living an unstable life following after construction sites to work as part-time carpenter. But now, he's old and there aren't any sites who'll hire him. The multi-leveled structure of the construction industry in Korea and Japan is managing the laborers inhumanely. While looking at those who live every day of their lives finding work and always with the uncertainty and pain of unemployment, I'm reminded of my father.
NoGaDa
Naoshi is a hale old man of 79 from the Kesen district of Iwate Prefecture who has spent his whole life working as a woodcutter and carpenter. When the tsunami hit in March 2011, the wooden beams of his house didn’t even warp after water reached the second floor, although his son was washed away and drowned in the flood. Naoshi is determined to rebuild his house in the exact same spot, to live out his days in the place he was born and continue to honour his son’s memory.
The Roots
2011 / Japan / 65min / HD / color / 16:9 / stereo
ENJOY YOUR LIFE / Jad Far & Tenniscoats Japan Tour 2011
Li Yifan’s documentary chronicles, with a fiercely analytical eye, one year in the life of Longwang village, a typically poor farming village located near Chongqing, China.
Chronicle of Longwang
With a camera and one simple question, the Chinese filmmaker Liu Wei heads for the University of Beijing and Tiananmen Square. "Do you know what day it is today?" he asks passers-by, mainly students and young people. "June 4th, 2005," most people answer correctly, but many of them already guess where the conversation is leading. This is the 16th anniversary of the student uprising at Tiananmen Square, which was bloodily quashed by the government.
A Day to Remember
The filming of the movie began in 2016, starting at the closing ceremony of "indiePlay China Indie Games Competition". The movie focuses on independent game developers, some of whom won the prize at the ceremony while others didn't, and their dissimilar life experiences afterwards: disbanded or reorganized, bankruptcy or fortune, achieved hilarious comeback or withdrew from public. They all once dedicated to make games they love, but their future varies on their thoughts.
Indie Games in China
Ayano Tsukimi, a 64-year-old resident of the largely-abandoned village of Nagoro, has sewed around 350 life-size dolls to represent the many townsfolk who have died or moved away since more bustling days when a factory sustained hundreds of residents.
The Valley of Dolls
古諾楓之歌
0 — 博盛的二年八班
Small nightly monochrome silent landscapes to observe and enter another time to feel how everyday transforms through the gaze.
Night Walk
Many people lack knowledge of sexual minorities, and even hold prejudices about and discriminatory attitudes towards them. This public welfare documentary focuses on the life stories of sexual minorities. The characters are at different stages, including those who have come out, those who are married, and those who are waiting for the legalization of gay marriage to obtain certification. This film promotes knowledge of sexual minorities in society, advocates for healthy living, and helps exual minorities realize their self-identity, hoping to reduce the occurrence of social prejudice and enhance understanding, trust, and tolerance between people.
Rainbow Cruise
The only surviving film produced by Showa Kinema, the first company of pioneering sound-film producer Yoshizo Minagawa, records a speech by conservative Prime Minister Giichi Tanaka, who served from from 1927 to 1929, when he resigned after a dispute with the Emperor. The film features Tanaka standing in front of black drapes, talking directly into the camera as he presents his position on issues ranging from the economy to diplomacy and foreign policy. The identity of the cameraman is unknown, as is the exact date of shooting, but the film passed state censorship on February 6th, 1928, shortly before elections for the House of Representatives, the lower house of Japan’s Diet. As a historical record, the film is important since it not only constitutes Japan's earliest surviving sound film, but also provides a record of concerns central to Japanese politics in the late 1920s.
The Speech of Prime Minister Tanaka
Documentary about Ginza district in Tokyo.
Ginza Shinkei
A special feature included with the Juzo Itami Film Collection about the production of "Shizuka na Seikatsu" a.k.a. "A Quiet Life".
"Utsukishiki Shizuka na Seikatsu" + satsuei genba hōmonki
SWA: the ‘Self’ is metaphorically hidden in a multi layered 5 sheath formation of interlocking caves we lose touch with our true subtle selves, when we identify with a fluctuating mind and the multiplicity of a manifest reality the film explores a vision... to experience and merge with the Universal Absolute; is the culmination of Inner Spiritual Wealth we need to be at peace with ‘Wholeness’ thus in our lucid states of meditation... our consciousness experiences a joyful sharing of the same space as the ETERNAL INFINITE; an eternal infinite, that supports all mutations... the effortless sublime state of ‘Samadhi’ we are enlightened... as the film, elevates human consciousness
SWA: Source Within Inner Wealth
Wild Boar Hunting
The sandstorm has covered the land and sky as far as the eye could see. As it wasn't viable to leave the task until the next day, the salt finder and the rock finding team continue their work in the Gobi Desert, dispatching smaller units to gather at the temporary transfer station. When it came close to supper time, the sandstorm has engulfed the entire base. The sky appeared a magenta color and grey green. Spinning at the tallest point of the mountain was a giant white cloud. Going from the cloud downwards, at the south side of the mountain, was an endless Gobi Desert, where a 750 hectares (1800 acres) ecological base was slowly being constructed. Video practice, sampling the topography, where does the depth of field lead in the image and sound? In the immortal desert, nothing decays. Everything weathers and turns to dust.
South of the Mountains
Wizdan lives in the rural village of Sebastia. Both their parents are olive farmers. With the expansion of Israeli settlements, Wizdan's and Nidal's parents are losing their farmland, but the problem is not theirs alone. But many Palestinians have been living in refugee camps for almost 70 years, and the fourth generation of refugees are growing up in refugee camps today. They struggle to guard their land despite repeated humiliation, and the film focuses on the resistance of such ordinary Palestinians including Wizdan's family.
All Live, Olive
Legendary Tigers of India
'Chinese Hip-Hop Underground' is an insider documentary following the story of Weber - one of Mainland China's first rappers. Weber's uncanny musical talents allow him to spearhead the creation of Chinese rap music - a free form of creative self-expression that spreads like wildfire amongst those struggling the most; young working class students and grassroots migrants left out of the country's meteoric rise. Even while Weber's music electrifies China's youth and gains a huge following, he is challenged by enemies posing a threat to his musical existence: state censors, on the one hand, and armies of state-backed pop stars seeking to steal the name of hip-hop for their own gain, on the other. Can Weber and underground musicians like him survive this assault? Will Underground Chinese hip-hop survive?
Underground Chinese Hip-Hop - The Rap Pioneers of China
Baeksan - From Uiryeong to Balhae
A documentary about the unconverted long-term women prisoners who had been captured as communist guerillas in South Korea and despite decades of imprisonment and social ostracization continue to uphold their cause of reunification and national democracy. The film follows the women as they attend reunification rallies, meet with a new generation of activists, march in protest of the war in Iraq, visit the DPRK to take part in the Inter-Korean Women’s Reunification Rally, reminisce with their comrades, tend to their families, and bury their comrades.