Films

Winner, Best Screenplay, 2016 part1. Jun, Akari, Sakurako and Fumi, four women living in Kobe believe that they can confide in each other about anything.…

Winner, Best Performance by an Actress, 2015 The sweet red bean jam called an is the lifeblood of the little pastry shop run by the…

An exploration of the Japanese concept of ‘mitoru’, the act of watching over or accompanying a dying person until their death, Journey to the Shore…

Winner, Best Animated Feature Film, 2015 Katsushika Hokusai is one of the best known Japanese artists. His works inspired Monet and Debussy. His “Great Wave…

Sent from her foster home in the city one summer to a sleepy town by the sea in Hokkaido, Anna dreams her days away amongst…

Winner, Best Animated Feature Film, 2014 In this adaptation of a 10th-century Japanese folktale, an elderly woodcutter discovers a tiny, doll-like girl inside a shining…

Ryota has earned everything he has by his hard work, and believes nothing can stop him from pursuing his perfect life. Then one day, he…

Yuna lives on a remote Ryukyu Island in Japan, dividing her time between studies and tending the home for her father, a stoic sugar cane…

In a prison within a prison, 40 Afghani women and their 34 children are housed in a facility within a 500-man prison. Ironically, in one…

In an underground world where tunnels extend everywhere, people wear protective clothes and lead quiet, enjoyable lives. Patema, a princess in her underground village, loves…

Jiro dreams of flying and designing beautiful airplanes, inspired by the famous Italian aeronautical designer, Caproni. Nearsighted from a young age and unable to become…

In 2010, 31,560 people ended their own lives and about 20,000 people died or went missing with the earthquake. Unemployed widower Fujio Murai’s family tragedy…

Sixth-grader Koichi lives with his unemployed mother and grandparents. His younger brother Ryunosuke lives with their father Kenji, an unsuccessful musician. A new train line…

Winner, Best Animated Feature Film, 2012 Momo is a young girl from the big city. Following her father’s sudden death, she has to move with…

When Hana falls in love, it feels like a fairy tale. She starts a family and produces two beautiful children, a girl—Yuki (Snow), a boy—Ame…

Summer 2002: 12-year-old Yuta, grieving for his father who died in a car accident a year ago, visits a place filled with memories. He meets…

Yokohama, 1963. Umi is a high school student living in her family home overlooking the sea. Every morning she hoists two signal flags towards the…

High Commendation, Best Documentary Feature Film, 2012 Young-Chan comes from the Planet of Snail where deaf and blind people live slow and quiet lives. When…

The film centers on Asuna, a young girl who spends her solitary days listening to the mysterious music emanating from the crystal radio she received…

Winner, Best Documentary Feature Film, 2011 In Afghan culture, it is possible for a father to sell his daughter and receive anywhere between nine cows…

Published in 1987 and since translated into 33 languages, NORWEGIAN WOOD is a story of loss and heartbreak in a time of global instability. Haruki…

Haruka is an ordinary teenager. Her mother passed away when she was only a little child and her father has been looking after her ever…

In 1955 Japan, Shinko, a curious third grade elementary school student lives in a small village with her parents and grandparents where she spends her…

A killer disease called “Medusa”, which turns the body to stone, has become a worldwide epidemic. Clinging to hope of a future cure, a group…

Winner, Jury Grand Prize, Actress Shinobu Terajima, 2010 During the Second Sino-Japanese War, in 1940, Lieutenant Kurokawa returns home as a honored and decorated soldier……

Due to the creation of the virtual city of Oz, anyone can access the Internet at any time, for information, to pay bills or play…

Based on the series of novels by Hiroshi Mori, The Sky Crawlers is set in an alternate history where, although the world is at peace,…

It is 1942. The Red Army is putting up a violent and effective resistance against the German invaders. Fourteen-year-old Nadya is a medium. In a…

Mental observes the complex world of an outpatient mental health clinic in Japan, Chorale Okayama, interwoven with patients, doctors, staff, volunteers, and home-helpers, in cinema…

A bizarre love triangle forms between a young Catholic upskirt photographer, a misandric girl and a manipulative cultist.

Winner, Best Performance By An Actor, 2009 A newly unemployed cellist takes a job preparing the dead for funerals.

Set in Japan 500 years ago, this is an historical action animation around the story of an elixir of eternal life. It is also a…

Ryûhei Sasaki (Teruyuki Kagawa) is keeping a secret from his wife, Megumi (Kyôko Koizumi), and his two teenage sons. Even though he leaves the house…

The film is told in three acts, beginning with a historical background of Japan’s student movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, mostly using archive…

Winner, Best Animated Feature Film, 2007 5 Centimeters Per Second is a serial short animation consisting of three independent works, all of which are depicted with…

Kouichi Uehara, a fourth grade student in elementary school, lives in a suburb of Tokyo. One day, walking back from school along the river, Kouichi…

Shoya Ishida starts bullying the new girl in class, Shoko Nishimiya, because she is deaf. But as the teasing continues, the rest of the class…

Two high school kids who’ve never met – city boy Taki and country girl Mitsuha – are united through their dreams.

Aktan Arym Kubat’s sixth features follows Centaur, a quiet, small and modest man who lives a simple life in a small Kyrgyzstan village. He is respected…

Leading attorney Shigemori takes on the defence of murder-robbery suspect Misumi who served jail time for another murder 30 years ago. Shigemori’s chances of winning…

12-year-old Olzhas is the eldest son of a family who live in the foothills of Tian Shan, the large span of mountain ranges that cross…

When penguins come into land from sea, they follow a predetermined path. It’s known as the penguin highway. The mystery of the sudden appearance of…

It is the first year of high school for Hodaka and he runs away from his home on an outlying island of Japan and goes…

In the long shadow of the 8888 Uprising that rocked Myanmar three decades ago, a Burmese family who immigrated to Japan without a visa debate…

Masafumi Yoshida and Kazuyuki Minami – or Fumi and Kazu as they are known – operate Japan’s first openly gay law firm in Osaka. Across…

Winner – Best Feature Film, 2018 After one of their now familiar shoplifting sessions, Osamu and his son come across a little girl in the…

The lorph people live for centuries, spending their days weaving a special cloth fabric called Hibiol, which serves as a chronical of the passing of…

Kun enjoys a happy childhood until the arrival of his baby sister, Mirai. As the new baby becomes the centre of their parents’ attention, Kun…

The unconventional family of a not-so-ordinary mother-and-daughter pair who live their lives to the fullest. Easy-going, cheerful, passionate and always ready to eat something delicious,…

Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a stage actor and director is happily married to Oto (Reika Kirishima), a screenwriter. However, Oto suddenly dies after leaving behind…

A girl on a quest to heal a broken heart. Haru, a 17-year-old high school student, lost her family in the Great East Japan Earthquake…

The metropolis of Hong Kong underwent an unprecedented social-political upheaval in 2019. Facing disillusionment, persecution and exodus, the plight of today’s youth echoes that of…

As childhood friends in a small country town Roma and Toto go by the name of “the Don Glees,” and have a small fireworks event…

As the skies turn red and the earth trembles, Japan stands on the brink of disaster. But one determined teenager, Suzume, sets out on a…

Hirayama seems utterly content with his simple life as a cleaner of toilets in Tokyo. Outside his very structured everyday routine he enjoys his passion…

Sixteen-year-old Ami, haunted by recurring apparitions, embarks on a journey from Singapore to Japan in search of her missing mother. On arrival in Tokyo, a…

Takumi and his daughter Hana live in Mizubiki Village, close to Tokyo. Like generations before them, they live a modest life according to the cycles…

Shohoku’s point guard, Ryota Miyagi, always plays with brains and lightning speed, running circles around his opponents while feigning composure. Ryota had become addicted to…

When her young son Minato starts to behave strangely, a mother feels that there is something wrong. Discovering that a teacher is responsible, she storms…

In a near-future Tokyo where the threat of a catastrophic earthquake pervades daily life, two rabble-rousing best friends are about to graduate from high school.…

Eleven-year-old Karin is abandoned by her father at the house of her grandfather, the monk of a small town in the Japanese countryside. Her grandfather…

Amid the wintry steppes, Saina, a Mongolian horseman turned cultural performer, tends his ranch during the day and performs horseback tricks for audiences at night.…

For 21-year-old Kana, thinking about the future is too boring, and she doesn’t know what she wants in life. She lacks passion for anything, and…

Synesthete Totsuko can see others as colours. Honours student Kimi has dropped out of school but still pretends to attend for her grandmother’s sake. They…