The Broken Commandment

At the strong insistence of his father, Ushimatsu Segawa conceals his origins from a “buraku” area of low-class “untouchables,” leaving his hometown to serve as an elementary school teacher where he excels and is loved by his students. But he constantly struggles with the secret of his low-birth status and is disturbed by all of the discrimination levelled upon his class. It prevents him from pursuing a romance with Shiho, whom he meets at the temple where he resides, but who descends from a samurai family.

The Broken Commandment

Ushimatsu's father told him never to reveal his lower-caste heritage; years later, he now contemplates confiding in an activist fighting against such discrimination.

The River with No Bridge

A widow and her two sons, Seitaro and Koji, live in the small town of Komori, where Buraku people are forced to reside. The two boys are continuously harassed by their teachers and classmates through their childhood as a result of their Buraku heritage. In the midst of the 1918 Great Rice Riots in Osaka, Seitaro meets with Asako, the daughter of a rice shop owner, and falls in love with her. She too is of Buraku descent. At the same period, Hideaki, an old friend of the brothers returns to Komori, and he along with Koji and the townspeople create "Zenkoku Suiheisha", the National Levelers Association, an organization pledged to build a bridge over the river of discrimination, making all people equal in every way.

September 1923

Based on the murder of nine street peddlers in the aftermath of the Great Kanto earthquake.

Men Are All Brothers

Documentary against buraku discrimination

Apostasy

In the Meiji period, a schoolteacher tries to hide his lower-class upbringing as he supports a visiting liberal intellectual.

Ningen no machi

Interviews with Burakumin in Osaka, victims of discrimination

Return

Eyüp decides to cross mount Ararat looking for his aunt in Yerevan after following a madman's words. His aunt has also been expecting someone to come from behind this mount for many years. Eyüp cannot be sure about the woman he finds behind the blue door, whether it is his aunt or not because they can't understand each other.

RETURN

‘RETURN’ follows Torstein Horgmo, Mikey Ciccarelli, Mons Røisland, Brandon Cocard, Brandon Davis, and Raibu Katayama as they push the boundaries of what can be accomplished snowboarding when innovative minds join forces.

Return

Return

A girl is at school. Suddenly it's as if she can't breathe. As she runs down the stairs we follow her into her mind. It takes us deep into dark woods.

12

not there yet

Return of the White-tailed Eagle

The documentary Merikotkan paluu (Return of the white-tailed eagle), tells the tale of the past and the present of the white-tailed eagle. The second protagonist of the film is the human - the animal that can be blamed for the eagles’ distress but also credited for its rescue.

Gasping for Air

When his sister disappears after leaving their home in hopes of singing stardom, Luis tracks her down and discovers the grim reality of her whereabouts.

Return

Return is a methodical construction of the approach of an individual towards an unseen goal, which assumes metaphorical significance. Viola moves toward the camera/viewer, pausing every few steps to ring a bell, at which point he is momentarily thrust back to his starting place, and then advanced again. Finally reaching his destination, he is taken through all of the previous stages in a single instant and returned to the source of his journey.

Return

A single man has worked most of his life in a supermarket. One night, he unexpectedly meets with his father, and the two are faced with the question of the reasons for their separation.

Return

RETURN tells the story of a retired Green Beret who embarks on a healing journey from Montana to Vietnam. There he retraces his steps, shares his wartime experiences with his son, treats his Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and seeks out the mountain tribespeople he once lived with and fought alongside as a Special Forces officer.

Return

After reading an article about hypnotic regression, a woman whose maternal grandfather died when she was only three years old contacts the hypnotic subject named in the article believing that he is the reincarnation of her grandfather, and hoping that she can learn the truth about how he died.

Return

A young couple purchase their new home to start a life together, only to find out the elderly couple next door have other plans for them.

HOME

Using images from my childhood and phone calls from key people in my life, we explore my particular sense of what is home to me. The home is not a place but a sensation produced by many more common factors that characterize our generation.

Return

"Behind every strong man is a strong woman!", Mumine shouts as her husband is arrested. She has 4 children, she's in her mid-30s, and she's the wife of a Crimean Tatar political prisoner. Muslim Crimean Tatars have been oppressed for a long time. They were deported under Stalin, allowed to return under Gorbachev, and since the occupation of Crimea in 2014 under Putin, they are being persecuted again. "Return" is a portrait of Mumine and Maye, two strong women struggling with the consequences of oppression. Their traditional understanding of their role as women does not stand in the way of their dedication. They possess strength, beauty and dignity. Only in their most intimate moments, they are overwhelmed by desperate helplessness.

Sabadazo

Realizing that he's out of touch with "the common people," a Mexico City politician spends a weekend slumming among the plebes he's supposed to represent.

Fate

Serial killers have plagued the American landscape for decades, committing gruesome atrocities, and providing some tough cases for criminal investigators to crack. Two detectives are on the trail of a bizarre murderer intent on slaughtering his victims, then using them as real-life puppets in a tale that he is trying to tell.

Ice Aged

Bringing humour, grit, and pure joy to the rink, “Ice Aged” follows six senior men and women from around the world as they pursue their childhood dreams of competitive figure skating. From local ice rinks to the grand stage at the World Hobby Figure Skating Championships in Bavaria, their inspiring journey defies age and expectations. Beautifully filmed over nearly three years, the cameras capture every tear, cheer, and broken bone as these skaters pursue their dreams. Not even a global pandemic can stop them from pushing forward in this fairytale on ice.

Return

Polish animator Anna Błaszczyk’s humorous short—a collage of drawing, cut-out, and computer animation—was inspired by Stanisław Lem’s 1961 novel Return from the Stars, a time-paradox tale of an astronaut who returns to Earth after many years away.

Forky Asks a Question: What Is a Pet?

Forky meets Rib Tickles and finds her charming and pleasant, only to be schooled by Rib on the dangers of law enforcement.