Catalog Search Results
2) Tokyo idols
Language
日本語
Description
This festival favorite documentary gets at the heart of a cultural phenomenon driven by an obsession with young female sexuality and internet popularity. This ever growing phenom is told through Rio, a bona fide "Tokyo Idol" who takes us on her journey to fame. We meet her "brothers", a group of adult middle aged male super fans who devote their lives to following her--in the virtual world and in real life. With her provocative look into the Japanese...
Language
日本語
Description
How does one integrate lessons learned from nature in daily life? This feature documentary is an experiential journey into the mystical practices of Japanese mountain asceticism. In Shugendō (the way of acquiring power), practitioners perform ritual actions from shamanism, "Shintō," Daoism, and Tantric Buddhism. They seek experiential truth of the teachings during arduous climbs in sacred mountains. Through the peace and beauty of the natural...
5) Ramen Heads
Language
日本語
Description
RAMEN HEADS follows Osamu Tomita, Japan’s reigning king of ramen, as he reveals every single step of his obsessive approach to creating the perfect bowl of noodles. He is relentless in his search for the highest-quality ingredients, as are his competitors. This delicious documentary also profiles five other notable ramen shops, each with its own philosophy and flavor, which exemplify different aspects of the ramen world. RAMEN HEADS provides a bite-size...
Language
日本語
Description
In a world where most mass-produced goods are heavily automated, a small group of manual laborers must brave unusual working conditions to preserve a 2000-year- old tradition that we have come to know as sake. THE BIRTH OF SAKE is a cinematic documentary that reveals the story behind passionate sake-makers and what it takes to make world-class sake at Yoshida Brewery, a 144-year- old family-owned small brewery in northern Japan. The workers at Yoshida...
Language
日本語
Description
Baseball is life for the die-hard competitors in the 100th annual Koshien, Japan's wildly popular national high school baseball championship, whose alumni include U.S. baseball star Shohei Ohtani and former Yankee Hideki Matsui. But for Coach Mizutani and his players, cleaning the grounds and greeting their guests are equally important as honing their baseball skills. In director Ema Ryan Yamazaki's dramatic and intimate journey to the heart of the...
Language
日本語
Description
How did a group of factory workers become a phenomenal sports success story and the pride of a nation? The Witches of the Orient tells the tale of the Japanese women’s volleyball team’s thrilling rise, unbelievable 258 games winning streak, and eventual Olympic gold at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
9) Paper City
Language
日本語
Description
In 1945, the US firebombed Tokyo, destroying a quarter of the city and killing 100,000 people. Now, in a society rapidly forgetting, three elderly survivors fight to leave behind a public record of their experiences before they pass away. Paper City explores what we choose to remember, and aim to forget—and what the consequences of that are.
10) The Departure
Language
日本語
Description
Ittetsu Nemoto, a former punk-turned-Buddhist priest in Japan, has made a career out of helping suicidal people find reasons to live. But this work has come increasingly at the cost of his own family and health, as he refuses to draw lines between those he counsels and himself.
Language
日本語
Appears on list
Formats
Description
The 85-year-old Jiro Ono is considered by many to be the world's greatest sushi chef. He is the proprietor of a 10-seat sushi-only restaurant inauspiciously located in a Tokyo subway station. Despite its humble appearances, it is the first restaurant of its kind to be awarded a prestigious 3-star Michelin review, and sushi lovers from around the globe make repeated pilgrimages, calling months in advance and shelling out top dollar for a coveted seat...
12) Nuclear Nation
Language
日本語
Description
March 11, 2011: A huge tsunami triggered by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake hits Japan, crippling the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, releasing radiation, and turning the residents of Futaba into "nuclear refugees." The devastation experienced by the town - dead livestock left to rot, crops abandoned, homes and businesses destroyed - was infinitely worse than anything reported by the newspapers. A year later, many refugees are still unable to return...
Language
日本語
Description
One of the most important artists of the era, Ryuichi Sakamoto has had a prolific career spanning over four decades. From techno-pop stardom to Oscar-winning film composer, the evolution of his music has coincided with his life journeys. Following the Fukushima disaster, Sakamoto became an iconic figure in Japan's social movement against nuclear power. As Sakamoto returns to music following a cancer diagnosis, his haunting awareness of life crises...
Language
日本語
Description
In 2013, Academy Award-winning film director and animator Hayao Miyazaki suddenly announced his retirement at the age of 72. But he can't shake his burning desire to create. After an encounter with young CGI animators, Miyazaki embarks on a new project to utilize CGI for the first time. But he confronts many challenges that threaten to cancel the film. This program goes behind the scenes over two years as Miyazaki overcomes struggles to create his...
15) Queer Japan
Language
日本語
Description
Trailblazing artists, activists, and everyday people from across the spectrum of gender and sexuality defy social norms and dare to live unconventional lives in this kaleidoscopic view of LGBTQ+ culture in contemporary Japan. From shiny pride parades to playfully perverse underground parties, this documentary pictures people living brazenly unconventional lives in the sunlight, the shadows, and everywhere in between.
Language
日本語
Description
Using film footage and composition notes left by the late Ogawa Shinsuke, Chinese director Peng Xiaolian shot additional film and completed the work, which colorfully yet elegantly depicts the manufacturing process of the Kaminoyama red persimmon. The inhabitants of the tiny Japanese village of Kaminoyama explain that it is the perfect combination of earth, wind and rain that makes their village's persimmons superior to those grown anywhere else,...
17) Antonio Gaudí
Series
Criterion collection volume 425
Language
日本語
Description
Antonio Gaudí designed some of the world's most astonishing buildings, interiors, and parks. Takes viewers on a tour of Gaudí's truly spectacular architecture, including his massive, still-unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia cathedral.
Series
Criterion collection volume 841
Language
日本語
Description
Includes: Lame d'un pere, l'ame d'un sabre, a 2005 documentary about the making of the series; New interview with Kazuo Koike, writer of the Lone Wolf and Cub manga series and screenwriter on all five of the films; New interview with biographer Kazuma Nozawa about Kenji Misumi, director of four of the six films; Silent documentary from 1937 about the making of samurai swords, with an optional new ambient score by Ryan Francis.
Language
日本語
Description
"One of the most important and complex works by two-time Palme d'Or winning director Shohei Imamura, A MAN VANISHES begins as an investigation into one of the thousands of missing persons cases that occur in Japan each year. The film follows the case of Tadashi, a handsome businessman who has suddenly vanished. Imamura and his crew interview the man's fiancée, Yoshie, who is desperately searching for him, and the filmmaker becomes increasingly involved...
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