Seijun Suzuki: kabuki & yakuzas

Film director and screenwriter Seijun Suzuki (1923-2017), who in the sixties was the great innovator of Japanese cinema; and his collaborator, art director and screenwriter Takeo Kimura (1918-2010), recall how they made their great masterpieces about the Yakuza underworld for the Nikkatsu film company.

A. K.

An intimate chronicle of the shooting of Ran (1985), a film directed by the legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa.

Bâtons d'encens pour Mizoguchi

“樹木希林”を生きる

This documentary follows the last days of actress KIKI Kirin, who passed away on September 15, 2018. The documentary is the first long-term, in-depth coverage of Ki-kin, and is a re-edited version of the NHK documentary of the same title that was broadcast on September 26, 2006, adding previously unseen footage. She was loved all over Japan for her blunt remarks, her attentive concern for those around her, and her overflowing sense of humor. Despite her busy schedule, she valued her daily life and had her own unique style, even though she talked about life as it came. This film captures the last days of her life and gives us hints for living from her "life as it comes" and her many inspiring words.

健さん

KEN SAN pieces together the puzzle of the life and legacy of Japan's mythical acting icon, Ken Takakura. Collaborators, friends and family tell intimate stories of Ken's journey: how one man of quiet dignity became a cultural barrier-breaking film star.

生誕100年 映畫監督成瀨巳喜男展

Because his style was similar to that of Yasujiro Ozu, who was already active at Shochiku, he moved to PCL (currently Toho) in 1933, where he appeared in the talkie works "My Wife, Like a Rose" and "Tsuruhachi Tsurujiro." It got attention. There were times when he was unable to make as many films as he wanted due to wartime film regulations and post-war Toho disputes, but in 1951 he revived his career with Meshi. Since then, he has released masterpieces one after another, including "Okaasan," "Lightning," "The Couple," "Wife," "Anii Mouto," "Sounds of the Mountain," and "Bangiku." The pinnacle of his work, "Floating Clouds," is Kenji Mizoguchi's "Wife." Even director Ozu was impressed, calling it a masterpiece of Japanese cinema, on par with "The Sisters of Gion." He depicted ordinary people in everyday life with an everyday realism that was not influenced by lyricism, and he consistently sought out women as his subjects.

The Erotic Empire

A short documentary primarily focused on Nikkatsu's Roman Porno series.

石井輝男 FAN CLUB

A documentary on Teruo Ishii, the Japanese "King of Cult".

三文役者

The film is a series of vignettes from Taiji Tonoyama's life and film clips, interspersed with a dialogue to camera by Nobuko Otowa, addressing the camera as if she is addressing Tonoyama himself, recollecting events in his life. The film focuses on Tonoyama's alcohol dependence and his various sexual relationships, as well as his film work with Shindo.

山中貞雄に捧げる漫画映画『鼠小僧次郎吉』

Legendary anime director Rintaro’s (Metropolis, X/1999, Galaxy Express 999) first new work in over a decade depicts pioneering 1930s director Sadao Yamanaka and the production of his Nezumikozo Jirokichi. Despite dying before the age of 30, Yamanaka was a pivotal influence in Japanese cinema whose work would go on to inspire future generations. While most of his films have been lost to time, his scripts remain, and Nezumikozo Jirokichi recreates one of these lost films—a tale of a famous, virtuous bandit in old Edo—as imagined by Rintaro together with an all-star team including Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira, Memories), Taro Maki (Pluto, Millennium Actress) and Masao Maruyama (Ninja Scroll, Perfect Blue).

赤い陰影

Keichi Tanaamis new animation work Red Shade (2021) is based on paintings that he had produced on the premise that they will be set in motion. Each of the 80 selected scenes was given a distinct movement of its own, and the edited version of the completed work became the first film. The 80 scenes are each independently complete, and can be freely rearranged. For example, you can start from scent 80 and end in scene one, or arrange them irregularly like 1, 4, 8, 7, and so on. In other words, the essence of the work does not change no matter how the scenes are arranged. Even so, it is possible to produce a strong impact by exchanging the images for each frame, and one can also for instance, create an impression of a refreshing breeze sweeping through the green meadows.

Za moich czasów

Through intimate, real-life phone calls with their granddaughters, grandmothers share confessions of love, heartbreak, and loss, reflecting on the shared experiences of womanhood across generations.

Dalla testa ai piedi

Bearing witness to the transition from woman to man that the director experienced between the late 1990s and 2005. Cangelosi began working on the project thinking of it as a kind of visual diary that would follow him step by step through his own physical and psychological transformation. The film, reimagined in editing at the end of the director’s personal story, reconstructs it by interweaving it with part of the historical events and political struggles that have taken place within Italian society over the past two decades.

Das Phänomen BRUNO GRÖNING – Dokumentarfilm – TEIL 1, TEIL 2, TEIL 3

In 1949 one name dominates the headlines: Bruno Gröning. Newspapers print special editions, radio and newsreels report about him. A film is made. Wherever he goes, thousands of people throng from all over to see him. Gröning becomes an international sensation. Most of those who come to him are not fans or followers. They are sick people. Beaten down by war, given up on by doctors, these people had only one wish: to become healthy, free from suffering and pain. They want Bruno Gröning to help them. And he does help them. “There is no incurable‒ God is the greatest physician!” Those are his words. And the inconceivable happens. The documentary film “The Phenomenon Bruno Gröning” traces the dramatic events of that time with original film and sound recordings, archival material, more than 50 eyewitness interviews, as well elaborate film re-enactments. Gröning died in 1959 but extraordinary healings are still occurring today.

The Diamond King

Dick Perez, official Baseball Hall of Fame artist for over 20 years, painted the game's history and every inductee - a project he continues in his 80s. This childhood immigrant's portraits changed commemoration of America's iconic pastime.

The Stamp Thief

A Hollywood filmmaker learns of a treasure trove of priceless stamps stolen by a Nazi officer from concentration camp victims and buried in a house in Poland.

You’re No Indian

Thousands of Native Americans have been banished from their tribes, including elders, teachers, and children. "You're No Indian" explores issues surrounding disenrollment, and how casinos may be fueling a quiet civil war in Indian country.

Sea Lovers

For most of our history, the ocean has been regarded as, if not a barrier, an adversary: something to be simultaneously exploited and feared. Ingo Niermann asks us to rethink our response to the fearful oceans, in hope of finding its hidden soul and reaching an understanding with it. In Sea Lovers Niermann offers us a whole chest of new models for reading, touching and feeling the sea. As the seaside theme parks of the early 20th century offered us a safe encounter with the novel and unsettling technologies of the age, could an underwater amusement park allow us closer interpersonal connection with other lifeforms? And just as the domestication of animals into emotional and affective companions made the forests ‘safe’ for our comprehension, could dolphins or cephalopods become our guides to the watery depths that were once our home? Could the salty touch of the ocean itself soften us towards accepting its wild and all-encompassing embrace?

Carta ao Dia 27

#OneFamily: An Off The Tracks Documentary

Join the hosts and guests of Off The Tracks as they head through the history and future of the podcast.