A variety of foreigners share their experiences of living in Japan.
Social & External
Intimately following 1st and 6th graders at a public elementary school in Tokyo, we observe kids learning the traits necessary to become part of Japanese society.
This film is about Japanese women, escape, glamour and dreams. The Takarazuka Revue is an enormously successful spectacular where the all-women cast create fantasies of erotic love and sensitive men. It is also a world for young girls desperate to do something different with their lives. In return for living a highly disciplined and reclusive existence, they will be adored and envied by many thousands of Japanese women. They will look, act and behave like young men while having no real men in their lives. Dream Girls explores the nature of sexual identity and the contradictory tensions that face young women in Japan today.
Welcome to The Great Happiness Space: Rakkyo Café. The club's owner, Issei (22), has a staff of twenty boys all under his training to become the top escorts of Osaka's underground love scene. During their training, they learn how to dress, how to talk, how to walk, and most importantly, how to fake relationships with the girls who become their source of income. Join us as Osaka's number one host boy takes us on a journey through the complex and heartrenching world of love for sale in the Japanese underground.
What is peace? What is coexistence? And what are the basis for them? PEACE is a visual-essay-like observational documentary, which contemplates these questions by observing the daily lives of people and cats in Okayama city, Japan, where life and death, acceptance and rejection are intermingled.
This documentary started as part of a photography project about the indigenous Ainu population in northern Japan, portraying people from tightly knit communities. They feel deeply connected by their culture and tradition. With gorgeous pictures, the directors explore how different generations of Ainu reflect on their identity after centuries of oppression.
Using never-before-seen footage, Japan's War In Colour tells a previously untold story. It recounts the history of the Second World War from a Japanese perspective, combining original colour film with letters and diaries written by Japanese people. It tells the story of a nation at war from the diverse perspectives of those who lived through it: the leaders and the ordinary people, the oppressors and the victims, the guilty and the innocent. Until recently, it was believed that no colour film of Japan existed prior to 1945. But specialist research has now unearthed a remarkable colour record from as early as the 1930s. For eight years the Japanese fought what they believed was a Holy War that became a fight to the death. Japan's War In Colour shows how militarism took hold of the Japanese people; describes why Japan felt compelled to attack the West; explains what drove the Japanese to resist the Allies for so long; and, finally, reveals how they dealt with the shame of defeat.
The Cove tells the amazing true story of how an elite team of individuals, films makers and free divers embarked on a covert mission to penetrate the hidden cove in Japan, shining light on a dark and deadly secret. The shocking discoveries were only the tip of the iceberg.
By mid-1945, Hitler is dead and the war has ended in Europe. Halfway around the world, however, the fighting is still going strong on a small island in the Pacific. Okinawa was the site of the last battle of the last great war of the 20th century, with a casualty rate in the tens of thousands. Through it all, military cameramen risked their lives to film the conflict, from brutal land combat to fierce kamikaze attacks at sea. See the footage they captured and experience this intense battle the way the soldiers saw it -- in color.
A journey into the unique, often bizarre, world of Japanese cat culture. Cat themed cafes, bars, temples, cat islands, cats with human jobs, cat friendly businesses, and the origins of the iconic beckoning cat statue.
In the world of computer games, there are players earning fight money as a PRO. They are sponsored by digital tool companies or beverage companies, and tour around the world to earn money in tournaments. This film goes over the days of Pro Gamers in Japan, USA, France and Taiwan.
Siblings Aru, age 3, and Kino, age 1, have 3 parents: father Fumino, who is transgender; mother Honoyo, Fumino's partner who gave birth to the children; and father Gon, a close gay friend who donated his sperm. The 3 are now raising their children together, struggling repeatedly to find their own way of being a family. This program covers their first 3 years of parenting. And it asks an important question: What does it take to be a family?
Actual footage by the United States Signal Corps of the landing and attack on Arawe Beach, Cape Glouster, New Britain island in 1943 in the South Pacific theatre of World War Two, and the handicaps of the wild jungle in addition to the Japanese snipers and pill-box emplacements.
Other - An in-depth look at the world of Japanese street racing.
The culture of Japan is incredible, from bloom festivals to ultra-modern cities. But there are also more than 130 mammals and 600 bird species dwelling in Japan’s 6,852 islands. This island chain is long enough to span climate zones, providing a huge range of habitat.
The Real Story of Fake Democracy. Filmed over three years in five countries, FREEDOM FOR THE WOLF is an epic investigation into the new regime of illiberal democracy. From the young students of Hong Kong, to a rapper in post-Arab Spring Tunisia and the viral comedians of Bollywood, we discover how people from every corner of the globe are fighting the same struggle. They are fighting against elected leaders who trample on human rights, minorities, and their political opponents.
How the Japanese process American pop culture and make it their own -- a mind-bending odyssey through cultural mixing.
Kazuo Hara follows Ayumi Yasutomi, a transgender candidate, who is also a Tokyo University professor, as she embarks on a national campaign for a seat in Japan's Upper House.
Documentary about two boys and a girl who travel to surfing spots around the world.
To test its top-secret Human Hibernation Project, the Pentagon picks the most average Americans it can find - an Army private and a prostitute - and sends them to the year 2505 after a series of freak events. But when they arrive, they find a civilization so dumbed-down that they're the smartest people around.
In the 22nd century, a paraplegic Marine is dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission, but becomes torn between following orders and protecting an alien civilization.
Peter Parker is unmasked and no longer able to separate his normal life from the high-stakes of being a super-hero. When he asks for help from Doctor Strange the stakes become even more dangerous, forcing him to discover what it truly means to be Spider-Man.
Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet's exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence-a commodity capable of unlocking humanity's greatest potential-only those who can conquer their fear will survive.
Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest of the world for the winter. But they aren't prepared for the madness that lurks within.
Spanning the years 1945 to 1955, a chronicle of the fictional Italian-American Corleone crime family. When organized crime family patriarch, Vito Corleone barely survives an attempt on his life, his youngest son, Michael steps in to take care of the would-be killers, launching a campaign of bloody revenge.
Andy moves to New York to work in the fashion industry. Her boss is extremely demanding, cruel and won't let her succeed if she doesn't fit into the high class elegant look of their magazine.
The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.
101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.
Batman raises the stakes in his war on crime. With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to dismantle the remaining criminal organizations that plague the streets. The partnership proves to be effective, but they soon find themselves prey to a reign of chaos unleashed by a rising criminal mastermind known to the terrified citizens of Gotham as the Joker.
From DC Comics comes the Suicide Squad, an antihero team of incarcerated supervillains who act as deniable assets for the United States government, undertaking high-risk black ops missions in exchange for commuted prison sentences.
In the near future, a weary Logan cares for an ailing Professor X in a hideout on the Mexican border. But Logan's attempts to hide from the world and his legacy are upended when a young mutant arrives, pursued by dark forces.
All unemployed, Ki-taek's family takes peculiar interest in the wealthy and glamorous Parks for their livelihood until they get entangled in an unexpected incident.
After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell finds himself training a detachment of TOP GUN graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen.
Imprisoned in the 1940s for the double murder of his wife and her lover, upstanding banker Andy Dufresne begins a new life at the Shawshank prison, where he puts his accounting skills to work for an amoral warden. During his long stretch in prison, Dufresne comes to be admired by the other inmates -- including an older prisoner named Red -- for his integrity and unquenchable sense of hope.
A supernatural tale set on death row in a Southern prison, where gentle giant John Coffey possesses the mysterious power to heal people's ailments. When the cell block's head guard, Paul Edgecomb, recognizes Coffey's miraculous gift, he tries desperately to help stave off the condemned man's execution.
As storm season intensifies, the paths of former storm chaser Kate Carter and reckless social-media superstar Tyler Owens collide when terrifying phenomena never seen before are unleashed. The pair and their competing teams find themselves squarely in the paths of multiple storm systems converging over central Oklahoma in the fight of their lives.
Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.
An Amazon princess comes to the world of Man in the grips of the First World War to confront the forces of evil and bring an end to human conflict.
Prince Amleth is on the verge of becoming a man when his father is brutally murdered by his uncle, who kidnaps the boy's mother. Two decades later, Amleth is now a Viking who's on a mission to save his mother, kill his uncle and avenge his father.
