Horikita Maki: Castella

Kampai! Sake Sisters

2019 · ★ 8

Sake is a traditional alcoholic beverage from Japan and is otherwise known as rice wine. Women were prohibited from entering the many large and small sake breweries dotting Japan for centuries. However, times have changed and women are present on the sake scene today. In several cases, they are integral to the Japanese brewery business. The documentary depicts women who are not only enthusiasts, but also leaving their marks on the evolution of this Japanese mainstay.

The Dance of Memory

2014 · ★ 5.7

Memory mechanisms are mysterious: we only see the stories we choose in order to construct our own reality. Every mark is a message in time, the invocation of an absence. To travel in the memory is to walk in time, zigzagging, a long road permeated by a dark, indecipherable logic… if we could choose seven moments to sum up our entire life, which ones would they be? The Dance of the Memory is a documentary-essay that guides us in that autobiographical search, where image and memory intertwine. It mixes archive material with an aesthetic and subjective tone.

Discovery of the Century — The Great Dinosaur of Japan

2018

It's considered the discovery of the century in Japan -- the unearthing of a complete fossilized skeleton of an 8-meter long dinosaur. It was dubbed Mukawaryu based on the name of the town in Hokkaido where it was uncovered. The find opened up a new world of dinosaur research in Japan. But it also created another mystery because this land dinosaur was discovered in a location that, eons ago, would have been in the ocean. How did the fossil get there? The amazing answer is revealed in this documentary, using CGI to re-create how dinosaurs lived 72 million years ago.

Heart of the Country

1997 · ★ 7

"Heart of the Country" is the story of Shinichi Yasutomo, the extraordinary principal of a rural elementary school in Kanayama, central Hokkaido, Northern Japan. Yasutomo is a man driven by his vision for learning and his passion for educating the heart as well as the mind. The film follows Yasutomo, his teachers and staff, students and their families over the course of one entire school year. The film is also the story of the families of Kanayama. Parents and elders of this once impoverished town embrace Yasutomo's vision, but not without wary glances back to the past. This small community, bound together by love for its children, is also defined by its journey through the cultural upheavals of postwar Japan.

With Malays in Sumatra

A travel documentary following writer Sigfrid Siwertz and photographer Gustaf Boge's trip to Sumatra.

The Endless Summer

1966 · ★ 7.2

Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer is one of the first and most influential surf movies of all time. The film documents American surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they travel the world during California’s winter (which, back in 1965 was off-season for surfing) in search of the perfect wave and ultimately, an endless summer.

Hafu

2013 · ★ 6.8

A journey into the intricacies of mixed-race Japanese and their multicultural experiences in modern day Japan. For some hafus, Japan is the only home they know, for some living in Japan is an entirely new experience, and the others are caught somewhere between two different worlds.

Sans Soleil

1983 · ★ 7.5

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

Under a Bridge

1974

In this tape, Ko Nakajima and Video Earth Tokyo interview a homeless man. The subject is initially angry and frustrated, but gradually opens up and shares stories about his life. Under A Bridge was later broadcast on cable television.

Planet Food: Goa and Manila

2012 · ★ 7

Roving foodies Angela May and Bobby Chinn embark on two culinary journeys across Asia. Angela travels to the western coast of India to sample the cuisine and culture of the thriving melting pot that is Goa. Meanwhile, Bobby travels to Manila where he discovers a passionate and humorous people, and their love of food.

A Life Reimagined: The George Masa Story

2026

In 1915 a young, charismatic Japanese man with a mysterious past entered into the Appalachian culture of Asheville, North Carolina, is suspicioned a spy, targeted by the Klan, but perseveres with a passion for photography and the mountains he adopts, bringing to life Great Smoky Mountains National Park & the Appalachian Trail.

The World's Biggest Penis

2006 · ★ 3.9

Meet the men, including the man claiming to have the World's biggest penis, who reveal there is a bittersweet side to nature's gift, and who lift the veil on a taboo subject and to show the reality of what it's like to have what all men dream of.