Arakawa Ao lives happily on his own and hardly ever leaves Shimokitazawa, where he works at a vintage clothing shop, goes to occasional concerts and hangs out at his favorite bar. Then, he gets an unusual request to appear in an independent film.
Professional boxer Sota Kusunoki has gained popularity for his fighting style, where he goes headlong into his opponents. However, years of fighting have taken their toll on his body, and he is forced to retire by a doctor's stoppage. He takes the opportunity of his retirement to marry his...
A four-part film done in the unique style of each director, Matusbayashi Urara gives a portrayal of a struggling actress named Machiko who lives in Kamata. Machiko is the central axis of the movie as the film comically depicts what it means to be a "woman" and an "actress" in society through...
Takashi is country hipster, work avoiding, not-so-smart life expert in vague rural-urban area in the north from Tokyo. He lives together with his grandmother and laughs at his friend who goes to real work - shoveling cow manure. On one day, a young woman arrives to the area and claims to be...
Born out of every artist’s creative crisis, the search for the next topic, Hirobumi WATANABE presents his latest film, dealing with the question of what his film should be about. The director stages himself as he idles away his days, delivering endless monologs during car rides, sleeping on the...
One day, while Seiya was calling everybody on the phone to tell them "It's me, thank you" on the rooftop of a building, a strange creature with emerald-blue fur, something he had never seen before, descended from the sky. The creature, along with its companions, claimed they had come to exterminate...
Aoi is a 17-year-old girl uncertain about her future, but one thing she’s sure of is her pride in being a junior to the legendary actor RYU Chishu, who graduated from her school a century ago. Unfortunately, she’s the only member of her high school’s film club, which now faces closure as her...
The latest unique human drama from Hirobumi and Yuji Watanabe portrays, in black and white and without words, a man who lives with his aging grandmother and works silently in a pigpen.
A bittersweet, hilarious, enlightening and inspirational road trip through Japanese arthouse cinemas with a heartily independent filmmaker, who also struggles to release his own movies in real life.
In a farming village north of Tokyo, a man lives with his aging grandmother and works day after day at a cow shed that looks like a relic from another era. Their routine repeats in tune with nature, portrayed tranquilly and persistently in black and white without words.
The band "Techno Brothers" played by Watanabe, brother Watanabe Yuji and pal Kurosaki Takanori, go to find fame and fortune in Tôkyô. It’s more accurate, though, to call it their manager’s plan. Named Himuro, she channels the look and attitude of famed Vogue editor Anna Wintour, from her...
Poolsideman's Watanabe Brothers stamp their trademark brand of humor and melancholy on this gem of a road movie, as two Beatlemaniacs plan and then travel to Tokyo for a Paul McCartney concert.
Wakaba saves her classmate Koki who was being bullied. From then on, people who are involved with Wakaba are killed one after another. When the murderer is found out, Wakaba realizes what true love is.
What happens when Watanabe meets horror? The eccentric director of instant cult movie "Techno Brothers" plays a director hired by a production company to make a documentary. His task is to spend a week in a haunted house. The approach is comical and offbeat, but as the story progresses, the...
In a suburb north of Tokyo that seems to be secluded from the world’s madness and malice, Yusuke Mizuhara works as a lifeguard at a swimming pool. With no family, friends or love, his life is lonely and monotonous. One day, he goes to another pool as a replacement guard with his unpopular...