In 1908, Director/Producer Shozo Makino (father of Japanese cinema) directed and produced the first dramatic film in Kyoto. “Honnô-ji Gassen” was shot at Shinnyo-Do Temple. Considered a lost film.
Social & External
The people behind it
Ritoku Arashi
Mori Ranmaru
Fukunosuke Nakamura
Oda Nobunaga
On a chilly Sunday morning, a man awakens to the mischievous stare of a unicorn that seems to have come straight out of his dreams. Carried along by an early morning sensuality, his fantasies transform his lonely apartment into a garden of delights, in which this young creature can freely reap the fruits of his desires.
A thief who is burglarizing gets surprised by the host and commits a brutal murder. He runs away but realizes that something is following him.
A family spending their holiday at the Costa Brava. The older brother's belief system will be disrupted when an act of kindness results in a little tragedy. This will lead him into a routine where refusing to make decisions could lead to greater tragedies.
In a sweaty, overcrowded tram in Sarajevo, a shy teenager is beset by every imaginable impediment as he tries to capture the attention of his object of desire. Yet the overheated hero of this wild farce will not be easily defeated.
A young recluse becomes fixated on a man he shares a commute with.
Swain is inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Fanshawe, features a dreamlike narrative of a young man’s ritualized rejection of heterosexuality, as a mysterious woman in white gossamer pursues him through a ruined landscape.
Years after mining operations began, a once rugged and undisturbed town changes drastically. Koi, 22, returns home for the first time since leaving for college, and does so with an infected ear. He joins his mother Tonet in waiting for his father, both of them clueless as to whether his father could make it home alive after an accident in the extraction tunnel. As Koi reconnects with his hometown in slow decay, he fears the impending possibility of losing both his father and his hearing. Part fiction, part experiment, and purposefully blurring the distinction, Here, Here is a loose visual study on landscapes and terrains, both natural and beyond.
Two new dads are putting their newly adopted newborn son to sleep when something unexpected happens...
Three women meet at the emergency room of a hospital at dawn with a common link: the three have just lost their partners in a traffic accident.
In Edo-era Japan, a ukiyo-e artist languishes in his master’s shadow. Creatively stifled, he finds consolation in the company of a prostitute, and becomes entangled in a love triangle. A mystery emerges involving two portraits and the sudden disappearance of the artist Sharaku. Helmed by Cannes-selected director Tatsuji Yamazaki, the film employs kabuki-inspired sequences and stylised sets.
Sweet Street follows the life of Isabella, A sex worker in the north of England. We explore the mind and day to day of a women working in the “managed zone” and how working on the Sweet Street there is no real happy ending.
Year 1288. Nuutti, a girl who has been silent for years has her life changed completely, when the hunting campground gets attacked and she is left on her own, in the middle of ancient Finland’s unpredictable wilds. When the weather and nature test her, only a memory of the past gives her strength and it’s easy to seek shelter in it. The way home is long, and the heavy load of the past weighs on her shoulders more and more with each step. Will the silence break?
A teen boy runs errands while being followed by various figures of authority. As he shares his experience with friends, this tense and controlled drama deftly explores the cyclical effects of victimization on the wider community.
For the elderly man preparing for his grandson’s wedding in Manon Nammour’s film, the accelerating rate of change in Beirut threatens to create a city he no longer knows by heart.
A miniature AI hologram, Maiko, is programmed to be utterly devoted to her teenage owner. But when he gets a real girlfriend, her passions may prove to be too large for her container.
A teenage girl gets involved in the process of delivering a pack of cocaine to its client, and gets stuck in a weird cycle of occurrences.
In this stylish and ruthless satire, a famous performance artist faces an unexpected crisis when real-world political matters complicate her latest impeccably provocative and eminently bankable piece.
Lola wants to escape her situation at all costs, even if it is only through her imagination, where she is a beautiful ballet dancer.
The mother of a feudal lord's only heir is kidnapped by the lord. Her husband and his samurai father must decide whether to accept the unjust decision, or risk death to rescue her.
Kenshin has settled into his new life with Kaoru and his other friends when he is approached with a request from the Meiji government. Makoto Shishio, a former assassin like Kenshin, was betrayed, set on fire and left for dead. He survived, and is now in Kyoto, plotting with his gathered warriors to overthrow the new government. Against Kaoru's wishes, Kenshin reluctantly agrees to go to Kyoto and help keep his country from falling back into civil war.
Blind traveler Zatoichi is a master swordsman and a masseur with a fondness for gambling on dice games. When he arrives in a village torn apart by warring gangs, he sets out to protect the townspeople.
A submissive hooker goes about her trade, suffering abuse at the hands of Japanese salarymen and Yakuza types. She's unhappy about her work, and is apparently trying to find some sort of appeasement for the fact that her lover has married.
A rebellious ninja in 17th century Japan takes refuge with a fisherman and his family.
Kyôko, a traumatized young Japanese girl, finds herself struggling with her self-confidence in her adult life. Growing up in a family without her mother and her sister, she constantly questions the rationale of sex and the notion of liberty in modern Japanese society.
Struggling to elevate himself from his low caste in 17th century Japan, Miyamoto trains to become a mighty samurai warrior.
Set during Japan's Shogun era, this film looks at life in a samurai compound where young warriors are trained in swordfighting. A number of interpersonal conflicts are brewing in the training room, all centering on a handsome young samurai named Sozaburo Kano. The school's stern master can choose to intervene, or to let Kano decide his own path.
Kakunoshin, renowned for his skills with a sword and in the game of go, embodies the samurai code. Falsely accused of a theft, he is forced to become a lowly ronin. Years later, when a case of missing gold pulls him into a new web of intrigue, Kakunoshin uncovers the truth behind his downfall. With the real culprit exposed, the go board flips, and a hellstorm of righteous vengeance follows.
In 16th century Japan, peasants Genjuro and Tobei sell their earthenware pots to a group of soldiers in a nearby village, in defiance of a local sage's warning against seeking to profit from warfare. Genjuro's pursuit of both riches and the mysterious Lady Wakasa, as well as Tobei's desire to become a samurai, run the risk of destroying both themselves and their wives, Miyagi and Ohama.
In 1879, Kenshin and his allies face their strongest enemy yet: his former brother-in-law Enishi Yukishiro and his minions, who've vowed their revenge.
After their lord is tricked into committing ritual suicide, forty-seven samurai warriors await the chance to avenge their master and reclaim their honor.
A porn magazine editor stumbles upon an amateur gang rape film and, struck by the girl's acting, decides to find her.
Manji, a highly skilled samurai, becomes cursed with immortality after a legendary battle. Haunted by the brutal murder of his sister, Manji knows that only fighting evil will regain his soul. He promises to help a young girl named Rin avenge her parents, who were killed by a group of master swordsmen led by ruthless warrior Anotsu. The mission will change Manji in ways he could never imagine.
Older, wiser but still a wandering loner, the blind, peace-loving masseur Ichi seeks a peaceful life in a rural village. When he's caught in the middle of a power struggle between two rival Yakuza clans, his reputation as a deadly defender of the innocent is put to the ultimate test in a series of sword-slashing showdowns.
Shakespeare's King Lear is reimagined as a singular historical epic set in sixteenth-century Japan where an aging warlord divides his kingdom between his three sons.
A group of travelers is stranded in a small country inn when the river floods during heavy rains. As the bad weather continues, tensions rise amongst the trapped travelers.
A nameless ronin, or samurai with no master, enters a small village in feudal Japan where two rival businessmen are struggling for control of the local gambling trade. Taking the name Sanjuro Kuwabatake, the ronin convinces both silk merchant Tazaemon and sake merchant Tokuemon to hire him as a personal bodyguard, then artfully sets in motion a full-scale gang war between the two ambitious and unscrupulous men.
Kai—an outcast—joins Oishi, the leader of 47 outcast samurai. Together they seek vengeance upon the treacherous overlord who killed their master and banished their kind. To restore honour to their homeland, the warriors embark upon a quest that challenges them with a series of trials that would destroy ordinary warriors.
A sadistic Daimyo (feudal lord) rapes a woman and murders both her and her husband, but even when one of his own vassals commits suicide to bring attention to the crime, the matter is quickly hushed up. Not only will there be no punishment, but because the Daimyo is the Shogun's younger brother, he will soon be appointed to a high political position from which he could wreak even more havoc. Convinced that the fate of the Shogunate hangs in the balance, a plot is hatched to assassinate the Daimyo. The two most brilliant strategic minds of their generation find themselves pitted against each other; one is tasked to defend a man he despises, and has a small army at his disposal. The other is given a suicide mission, and has 12 brave men. They are the 13 Assassins.