Bon Odori
14m · Documentary
Bon Odori dives into the world of karaoke and the ways this Japanese tradition has taken root and evolved in Brazil. Through an event that brings together young Japanese-Brazilian descendants and participants with no prior connection to Japanese culture, the documentary reveals encounters, memories, and exchanges across generations. Amid touching stories, striking voices, and charismatic personalities, the film crafts a sensitive portrait of belonging, respect, and cultural preservation—celebrating the power of the connections that emerge when differences are embraced.
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2014 · ★ 7
Join Megan McCormick on a journey of discovery across Japan's spectacular heartland starting in Japan's beautiful former capital Kyoto. She explores Buddhist temples, World Heritage Sites, and bargains at the city's best flea market. She then travels to Osaka, and Iga-Ueno, a former ninja stronghold, where she learns the secrets of these famously skilled assailants. She also visits the remote Sado Island and Himeji.
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The Ukishima Maru Massacre
2019
22nd of August, 1945. Japan lost the war and they loaded an 8,000 person Joseon laborer force onto a ship called the Ukisima to take them to the Busan Port. However, the ship sunk into the water due to an unknown blast. This is the story of thousands of Joseon people who dreamed of returning to their families and how they died.
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Memories of Nijinsky
1980
A valuable testimony that approaches the essence of Nijinsky who did not leave a video. Boris Kochno, who was at the center of Russian ballet, vividly tells how Nijinsky, who had fallen ill, witnessed his newly choreographed self-made work. Nijinsky's successor machine is a rare record of transferring Nijinsky's appearance in the popular work "Afternoon of a Faun" to two great dancers, Grigorowich and Wasiriev, who carry Bolshoi ballet on their backs.
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Kazuo Ohno: I Dance Into the Light
2004
A documentary about legendary butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno.
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A Summer Storm: Butoh of Dark Spirit School
2003
Ankoku Butoh is a style of avant-garde dance that established itself in the counter culture experimental arts scene of post WWII Japan. The dance form is thought to have been founded by Tatsumi Hijikata, who both created and performed in butoh pieces from the late 1950’s - through the early 1970’s. In butoh, the style of movement is extremely stylized and deliberate, vacillating between slow and sharp, expressing feelings of dread, sexualization, violence, calmness, birth and “creatureness” among other things. This performance of Summer Storm was originally recorded in 1973 at Westside Auditorium, Kyoto University, Japan, and was Hijikata’s last public performance before his death in 1986 with Butoh of Dark Spirit School. Video version produced in 2003.
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2012 · ★ 3.5
After being invited by Benjamin Millepied to a rehearsal for the L.A Dance Project's premiere performance, Oscar-nominated director Alejandro G. Iñárritu was inspired to make a video-exercise that documents movement and dance in an experimental way, with a stream of consciousness narrative. The story takes place in a secluded, dusty space and centers around LADP dancer Julia Eichten who seems to be on an eternal search... for herself.
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As described by Oliver Sykes, "The most offensive, vulgar, awkward, retarded band DVD of all time. But also the funniest and the best."
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2017
Award-winning choreographer Alexander Ekman dives into the subject of creativity by meeting scientists, professors, artists, film directors and choreographers, with the goal of trying to understand every aspect of the phenomenon.
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The Inland Sea
1991 · ★ 7.1
In 1971, author and film scholar Donald Richie published a poetic travelogue about his explorations of the islands of Japan’s Inland Sea, recording his search for traces of a traditional way of life as well as his own journey of self-discovery. Twenty years later, filmmaker Lucille Carra undertook a parallel trip inspired by Richie’s by-then-classic book, capturing images of hushed beauty and meeting people who still carried on the fading customs that Richie had observed. Interspersed with surprising detours—a visit to a Frank Sinatra-loving monk, a leper colony, an ersatz temple of plywood and plaster—and woven together by Richie’s narration as well as a score by celebrated composer Toru Takemitsu, The Inland Sea is an eye-opening voyage and a profound meditation on what it means to be a foreigner.
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Iwo Jima: From Combat to Comrades
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The Masseurs
1963
Anma (The Masseurs) is a representative and historical work by the creator of Butoh dance, Tatsumi Hijikata in his early period in the 1960s. The film is realized not only as a dance document but also as a Cine-Dance, a term made by Iimura, that is meant to be a choreography of film. The filmmaker "performed" with a camera on the stage in front of the audience. With the main performers: Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the film has the highlights such as Butohs of a soldier by Hijikata & a mad woman by Ohno. There is a story of the mad woman, first outcast and ignored, at the end joins to the community through her dance. Inserted descriptions of Anma (The Masseurs) are made for the film by the filmmaker, but were not in the original Butoh. The film, the only document taken of the performance, must be seen for the understanding of Hijikata Butoh and the foundation of Butoh.
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