Movies: Michiko Kitamura

A collection of three short films by Japanese visual genius Sogo Ishii. Each short focuses on the protagonists running away from a threat....

The studio of potter Seisho Kuniyoshi is deep in the mountains, surrounded by greenery, where he devotes every day to making pottery. One day, a girl appears and begins to destroy the pottery....

As sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to inflict levels of pain that Kakihara has only dreamed of....

Fifty years of war between the Great Eastern Federation and Europa - now merged as Eurasia - have taken their toll on planet Earth. As a result of the use of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, much of Earth has become uninhabitable and people ...

A tragedy strikes a young woman's life without warning or reason. She continues living while searching for meaning in a lonely world....

An American journalist travels through 19th-century Japan to find the prostitute he fell in love with but instead learns of the physical and existential horror that befell her after he left....

An anthology film consisting of four segments based on literary works by Edogawa Ranpo....

The story centers around Mikage, a young woman who loses her parents when young. She grows up in a lonely household with her grandmother who dies when Mikage reaches adulthood. Grief-stricken, she finds solace in the kitchen. Yuichi, a friend of Mika...

An unknown future. A boy confesses to the murder of another in an all-boy juvenile detention facility. More an exercise in style than storytelling, the story follows two detectives trying to uncover the case. Homosexual tension and explosive violence...

Daisuke is supposed to be out looking for a respectable job and equally respectable wife. He is 30 years old and devotes his attention to music and literature; his family is wealthy and can support his interests. When his friend Hiraoka returns with ...

Two Japanese friends accidentally kill their boss and dump his remains in Black Fuji, a mountain/landfill hybrid. This leads to poor results when the chemicals of the landfill mix with the corpse (and many other corpses) to give rise to a zombie infe...

Two friends who work together at a Tokyo laundry are increasingly alienated from everyday life. They become fascinated with a deadly jellyfish....

A nameless gunfighter arrives in a town ripped apart by rival gangs and, though courted by both to join, chooses his own path....

A salaryman faces a major life change as his firm undergoes financial difficulties. To add to his troubles, a man claiming to be his long-estranged father shows up at his house requesting shelter. One of the best of Somai's seriocomic studies of the ...

Live-action adaptation of a madcap manga about art, opposites, love and a whole lot of cosplay....

Anthology film directed by Tadanobu Asano....

Initially, Ambivalent Future was intended as a film about the production of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's "Bright Future". But director Fujii has taken the "behind the scenes"-concept to unprecedented heights with this unique documentary offering a close look i...

This is a biographical film about the late Yoko Araki, who was the wife of Japan's leading photographer, Nobuyoshi Araki....