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The year before, I had made a film about the poet Tsutomu Shotsu, and I wanted to make a film about Hiromi Ito, a young female poet on the rise. As I was talking with her, she told me that she loves to pull out hair, and when I asked her about it, her story touched on the sense of life. I decided to film her talking about it. She said that when she pulls out her own hair, she gets excited because she is aware of both herself pulling out and herself being pulled out. Skin is a problem, she said. As I was filming, I was surprised to find that her story had become a great theory of the body. For the introduction, I borrowed a song by Hikashu. Produced in 1981. The artist was 46 years old. (Suzuki Shiroyasu).

Interviews with Burakumin in Osaka, victims of discrimination

A drama in which the main character Hashi, a motherf*cker, heads towards a shocking end. The green clothes Hashi wears were hand-drawn by Gyoshu.

A portmanteau of two films about Uluru (then known as Ayres Rock). "A huge isolated rock in the midst of desert in Australia: Ayers Rock. I produced two films around this rock; however, the method of the filming are different. The first, "Moments At The Rock," shot with an amateur video camera, was made as a free style improvisational film. The camera got strange halations from the strong sunshine in the desert of Australia, and I was quite surprised by the result which surpassed the color change caused by nature over the rock. This film was awarded Grand Prize at the Edison International Film Festival. In "A Rock In The Light", I requested the music of Haruyuki Suzuki, a contemporary composer. This music is unified with the image, which is visually structured, setting the rock at the center, along the axis of light. For the new DVD version, I titled "Air's Rock" - Takahiko Iimura

In "I Am A Viewer, You Are A Viewer" the performer plays the double role of the performer and the audience simultaneously, talking to his own shadow. At the end, the performer suggests the audience members move into the light to see themselves in shadow.

A half-hour experimental film that shows Fukui moving towards cyberpunk imagery in a manner similar to Tsukamoto, featuring industrial locations, a malfunctioning cyborg/android and a hulking metallic ‘caterpillar’ that stalks characters.

A man falls in love with a cactus at first sight and takes a bite out of it. He takes a bite and runs around the fantasy world. When he is chased by a witch and runs away to the sea, his eyes are filled with the void! The next thing you know, your body shrinks and you're scurrying around like an ant on a stone slab. The next thing you know, your body shrinks and you're scurrying around like an ant on a pile of rocks. First, the movements of the characters are broken down into hundreds of still photographs, which are then colored, and then they are moved one by one in stop motion to create unrealistic actions. In addition to the method of creating unrealistic action by moving each image frame by frame, the film successfully combines live-action time-lapse photography to express the unique perspective imbalance, tropical color design, and obsession of the chase.

"Groper Train" pink film distributed by Okura Eiga.

BDSM erotic-drama distributed by Nikkatsu for home video.

Pink film by Kaoru Umezawa.

It consists of two repeated images: a scene of cutting the back of a hand with a utility knife and blood oozing out, and another one of a man being slaughtered at the beach.

Schoolgirls are attacked by three men...

A woman wants to find love. Erotic-drama distributed by Nikkatsu for home video.

Why do people wave their hands when they say goodbye? We embarked on a dream journey from Borges' The Circular Ruins. Filmed in 16mm by the Japanese Isao Yamada, filmmaker, graphic artist and manga author.

A donut-shaped image floating in the center of the screen begins to move like a living creature. The colors and patterns are constantly changing, gradually gaining strength, and eventually leading to an explosive radial movement.

An abstract animation reminiscent of Mondrian's paintings. The richly varied and colourful patterns of movement, composed solely of a checkerboard pattern, seem to serve as a metaphor for an urban space that never sleeps. This work must be screened in accordance with specific rules.

“Peter Kubelka…was teaching at Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste – Städelschule (Städel) at the time. His classes, filmmaking and cooking, were very unique, and this film was made around the time I was studying with him at Städel… This is a single-shot film, moving along the passageway using a handmade dolly. I used an Arriflex 16ST camera, and I changed the filming speed from 48fps to 4-6 fps while shooting.” - Yo Ota

Futami is a 17-year-old high school girl. Her father was killed in the war, her mother is hospitalized due to illness, and she lives with her senile grandmother. As she spends her adolescence surrounded by this "great sadness," her friend runs away from home and comes to live with her. This is the first film of the "16mm Film Production Support Project" (now PFF Scholarship) which started in 1984.

A document of a scandal...

Pink film from Toei.

Pink film directed by Maria Satsuki.

An interesting peek into an anime studio in 1984, with a heavy focus on early usage of computer graphics in anime.

Erotic-drama distributed by Nikkatsu for home video.

The film was made in a period of three weeks in the summer of 1989. It starts in a youth hostel somewhere in the mountains where Oki has a temporary job and continues in the outer suburbs of Osaka. A short silent film that Oki made in 1988 is included as a flashback in the film.

A test work for SPACY. I had a mad interest in the kind of sensation of visual movement gained from subsequent rushings into the mise-en-abyme space created in the space between two mirrors facing each other, and was totally absorbed in this when I made the film. These images of hurtling entrances born at last out of repeated failure excited even myself. (Takashi Ito)

In a gentle adaptation of Megume Nagata's book Flowers Wait for the Moon, a girl grows up, falls in love, and becomes a mother, realizing that her childhood is now forever behind her.

A modern-day version of Alice in Wonderland using CGI technology. This is a visual fantasy co-starring a girl, who plays Alice, and a CGI "rabbit."

Pink film by Kensuke Sawa.

Short video starring Kaoru Kaze.

Having spent her childhood in Dalian and Harbin in the former state of Manchukuo, Taeko Tomiyama carried within her the conviction: “As an Asian, as a woman, I will begin from the margins of beauty.” Noriaki Tsuchimoto, on the other hand, directed numerous films related to Minamata disease. He confronted the suffering of pollution victims head-on, continuing to convey the harshness of life with unflinching clarity. In an interview, Tsuchimoto once remarked: “Within Tomiyama’s narrative world lies something that could be called her eros, her utopia, her aesthetics of liberation. Why does she persist in creating such dark lithographs on the themes of Chikuho and Korea? And how is it that, while doing so, she can also simultaneously depict a world of such beauty?” This film not only reveals the allure of the lithographs themselves, but also centers on the dialogue between Tsuchimoto and Tomiyama. It is a portrait of two comrades, earnestly pursuing the meaning of artistic expression.

Erotic-drama distributed by Nikkatsu for home video.

A Japanese woman travels around Australia in search of her lover whose whereabouts are unknown. Her interactions with the people whose lives are rooted in the area are enchanting

"I thought of disassembling one second by sticking opaque scotch tape on 8mm films to shut existing images. How much information can we put in 1/24 second? How much can we perceive? As a result, I felt that one single second was a surprisingly long time! An image on a frame caused an afterimage in the total darkness. Is an afterimage formed somewhere between our perception and memory?"

Umitori takes place in Shimokita Peninsula on the northern edge of the mainland, which was becoming a “nuclear energy peninsula”, undergoing tremendous development and serving as the home port for Mutsu, a nuclear­-powered ship. Focusing on the fishermen and their stories, Tsuchimoto and his crew made their subject matter the “theft of the sea” perpetrated by giant business conglomerates. While the fishermen of Minamata were obvious victims of the mercury­-poisoning tragedy, the fishermen in Shimokita were inadvertently becoming the permanent victims of another announced trag­edy. Tsuchimoto interviews the fishermen, especially focusing on a stage play actor and his boat­-owner family, establishing, as it became his practice, a complex reflection about the threat brought to small communities by the forces of “progress”.

Short animated film by Tadanari Okamoto

Erotic drama distributed by Nikkatsu for home video.

The suspense about a man in pursuit and a man being pursued.

Short animation by Tokumitsu Kifune & Sonoko Kifune.

The ecosystem series which started in 1981 counts 15 and is still growing, becoming Koike's lifework. Through the series, Koike has shot a huge amount – thousands – of still photos of objective motifs, from ocean creatures, microbes, and granite to artificial material such as fishing nets. Those photos are developed with a specialized method then reshot with movie film. The style has been thoroughly continued. The images that are created as a result tower before our eyes as an overwhelming visual experience. Each motif has been repeatedly decomposed and reconstructed of its "attribution" and "meaning", causing a shocking Gestalt breakdown for the audience.

"The filming of the entrance to the company dormitory in which the film-maker was living. Centering the film on one pillar, he warps the spaces to the left and right and creates an unstable space similar to painting that employs anamorphosis. Made as were SPACY and BOX with a large number of photographs, the film ends with a violent movement, but is poetic for this." - Takashi Nakajima

Pink film by Satoru Kobayashi.

With Afghan Spring, Noriaki Tsuchimoto widened his focus to the international arena. Working in collaboration with his compatriot, Hiroko Kumagai, and Afghan film-maker, Abdul Latif, he examined society and politics in Afghanistan af the time of the Soviet withdrawal. The film now serves as a valuable record of a culture partially destroyed soon after by the Taleban regime.

A short animated film by Furukawa Taku

Kakuei Kakkun Tanaka is a superhero who hangs out with his friends. In his misadventures, he becomes prime minister of Japan, visits New York and prevents a nuclear war.

“Moments At The Rock,” shot with an amateur video camera, was made as a free style improvisational film. The camera got strange halations from the strong sunshine in the desert of Australia, and I was quite surprised by the result which surpassed the color change caused by nature over the rock. This film was awarded Grand Prize at the Edison International Film Festival.

Tsujiko is a college student who suddenly cuts her hair short like a man. Her ordinary daily life is captured with an ultra-long camera that is almost always left unmoved. Episodes with her friends from her high school days are cut back and forth in black and white, and the past and present are told in an unhurried manner. However, the past soon becomes a duplicate of the present, and every day turns into a daringly extraordinary one. Inspired by a short film of the same title by Fumiko Takano.