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A short movie based on the children's story by Momoko Ishii.

A short puppet animation movie by Tadahito Mochinaga.

A puppet animation Obayashi made while he was a teenager.

An early color animation which uses the color to help tell the story. Three butterflies save a bird that falls out of it's nest during a rainstorm. The butterflies decide to ask the flowers for cover, but the red rose will only help the red butterfly since they are the same color.

A passenger train derailment occurred on August 17, 1949. In the aftermath, it was suspected that Communist sympathizers were responsible and people involved in an ongoing labor dispute were rounded up and put on trial. Starting from the premise that unjust verdicts were handed down in both the initial trial and on appeal, this film sets out to investigate the truth.

In the mountains of the Chubu region, farmers grow legumes, buckwheat, and millet. Silk cultivation and forestry are also important sources of income. Paper production has flourished since the Meiji Period, and precision-instrument factories have been built for assembling lenses and timepiec- es. The natural environment is harsh but beautiful, and a local tourist industry has also developed.

The short film is the earliest surviving Japanese anime broadcast on television. Originally airing on July 14, 1958, on NTV and again on October 15, 1958, the nine-minute animation was the first televised Japanese animation and the first example of a full color broadcast.

1955 short film

This film presents a contemporary Tokaido completely transformed from the scenery famously portrayed by Utagawa Hiroshige in the Edo Period: a landscape traversed by rail tracks and busy with cars coming and going. Heading west from Tokyo, we encounter the traditional industries that developed in the cities and localities along the highway, as well as the mechanical industries that arrived with modernization. The journey continues to Kyoto and Osaka

Documentary at a school in Nagano Prefecture

Suzunosuke continues his battle with the Skull Mask gang in a booby-trapped cave.

A whale swallows women and men.

On a winter's night a bear, a fox and a squirrel seek refuge from the cold. They are drawn by the hearths in the homes of two woodcutters. One man treats them poorly, while the other welcomes them.

Fifteen years before Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Richie anticipated the animation of Terry Gilliam in this early 8mm film. He cut up Life magazine and animated the clippings through clever use of strings and editing. These “Four American Fables” offer up a slicing critique of gender and 1950s consumerism.

A short documentary about the behaviour of Japanese primary school students.

Filmed only a few months after Tatsumi Hijikata’s first explosive public butoh performance, “Gisei” features Hijikata and members of his Asbestos Hall Troupe in a brutal allegory of a closed society. Shot by noted Japanese film scholar Donald Richie, “Gisei” still conveys the shock that Japanese audiences in 1959 must have felt at the birth of Hijikata's ankoku butoh, or "dance of darkness". Richie met Hijikata through mutual friend Yukio Mishima. They decided to collaborate on a film about segregation. Richie memorialized the film in his diary: “It is more than ever about the death of an individual, a distinct kind of human sacrifice.”

This engaging documentary focuses on a group of ‘studying mothers’ who decide to involve themselves in the civic politics of a provincial town, Kunitachi.

An animated black-and-white short by Noburô Ôfuji.

"Central Meteorological Observatory Instruction: Weather School" is a short film that explains weather in an easy-to-understand way for children, with animation production subcontracted to Nippon Animation (now Toei Animation).

A short puppet animation movie by Tadahito Mochinaga.

Haneda’s debut as full director, made after four years spent as an assistant, is set in a farming village in Shiga Prefecture (east of Kyoto). The film depicts the traditional architecture, lifestyles and customs of the village, its agricultural and domestic labour, but its central focus, as with many of Iwanami’s early films, is on education.

Film about a ghost ship. There is no dialogue, just music and a choir.

Depiction of the harsh life in a rural town in Yamagata.

The Tone River flows from the Mikuni Mountains through the Kanto Plain. The film follows its path from its source to Choshi and into the Pacific Ocean, documenting the lifestyles and industries along its banks and the history of its management.

An educative film about the water supply and watersystems in small towns and villages in Japan. It captures the unsanitary and inconvenient lifestyles without water supply through examples from various places, and shows how life can be brighter if a small but managed water supply is installed. The first film directed by Susumu Hani, produced under the auspices of the Ministry of Health.

Little Black Sambo was screened at the first Vancouver International Film Festival in 1958, and won the Best Film award in the Films for Children section.

A short puppet animation movie by Tadahito Mochinaga.

The clear record of a zoo's daily workings and the hardships of zookeepers.

In this tale an ant and a pigeon help each other. Third remake of the Ari to Hato.

A short puppet animation movie by Tadahito Mochinaga.

Documentary by Noda Shinkichi

8mm film by Hideo Hamada

A documentary depicting the the impoverished fishing village in Honshu's northernmost region as they struggle in the face of modernization.

A 1954 documentary about Japanese fishermen aboard the "Lucky Dragon" who were irradiated by the American Castle Bravo nuclear test in the Pacific.

The beautiful girl Cinterrier (like the terrier version of Cinderella), was proposed to by many dogs. Who finally got her heart?

The Yokohama and Kawasaki factory district, industrial heart of Japan. In 1953, a Kanagawa Prefecture May Day (International Workers’ Day) took place here, spreading links of solidarity among workers. Workers criticize the Korean War-era transformation of Japan into an American military base and protest remilitarization. A new print will be screened.

A Japanese fairy tale about a bear cub who would rather play than help his parents with house chores.

A stop motion puppet animation by Tadahito Mochinaga.

8mm film by Hideo Hamada

Educational film commissioned by Kansai Electric Power Company

Third film in the festival trilogy

1953 War Documentary about Kamikaze Pilots