Sawako Decides

A 17-year-old country boy named Norio decides his only option is to follow his late parents’ example and commit suicide. After failing even at that, his 34-year-old English teacher Akemi convinces him that he should instead move to Tokyo with her and become a lawyer on her dime. Unfortunately, Akemi doesn’t have quite as much money as she leads Norio to believe, and has to secretly get a job at a karaoke bar under the guise of “going to the salon”. Meanwhile, she continuously prods her somewhat dimwitted student to work harder toward her manufactured goal of him becoming a lawyer. Although Norio is falling in love with Akemi, he’s not all that interested in studying, and matters only get worse when he discovers his benefactor’s secret source of income.

The emotional journey of a four-member family that fails to recognize that it is rapidly growing apart until the mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Mitsuko is 24, heavily pregnant and estranged from the American father of her child. Her parents believe she is happy and successful in America and are unaware that she has secretly returned to Tokyo. Making the biggest decisions on the slightest whim, she moves back into the tenement street where she lived as a child. The move changes lives, reignites old romances and creates a supportive circle of love that may be exactly what Mitsuko needs.

Short film about youth in the 80s.

Protagonist Ryoko is played by Machiko Ono, one of Japan’s most talented and accomplished actresses, who made her screen debut in Naomi Kawase’s Cannes Camera d’Or-winning “Suzaku” (97) and went on to appear in a succession of successful works including “Bali Big Brother” (2015) and “The Miracles of the Namiya General Store” (2017). Other consummate veterans fill out the supporting cast. The inimitable Joe Odagiri, known for his memorable performances in “Sway” (2006) and “Over the Fence” (2016), takes the role of Ryoko’s late husband, while the manager of the sex shop where Ryoko works is portrayed by Masatoshi Nagase, a charismatic and prolific performer whose recent credits include Naomi Kawase’s “Radiance” (2017).

A young man in a green Martian costume allows himself to be dragged hither and thither by a bossy housewife. In this way the film swerves between deceptively ordinary realism and a fantastic absurdism. The housewife Junko (Otori Rei) has started to behave increasingly strangely since the death of her son. Her husband can't put up with it any more and goes off with a female colleague. The man in the green suit, Katsura Tombo (Oda Yonosuke), is a bread salesman but he forgets his work. His strange costume is supposed to lure new customers, but he seems to have forgotten that. He is more or less kidnapped by Junko and falls in love with her. Junko however has other intentions with the rather naive salesman. The failed Martian drives her around in his aunt's van, but his helpfulness doesn't get rewarded.

Saeko is a normal schoolgirl who just happen to witness two rockets collide in the sky one day. Finally, this is something out of the ordinary. She attends school, but it is dull. Life is boring. The teacher has other things on his mind. Her father stinks. Her father's factory is going broke. Perhaps she can save it. That would be something different.

Majime, an eccentric man in publishing company, who has unique ability of words, joins the team that will compile a new dictionary, ‘The Great Passage.’ In the eclectic team, he becomes immersed in the world of dictionaries. But the team is overwhelmed with problems. Will ‘The Great Passage’ ever be completed?

A young couple is devastated when their son is killed by a falling tree during a windstorm. As the distraught father begins to look for answers into his son’s death, what appears to be a tragic accident turns out to have been the result of multiple blunders by multiple people.

High school boy Machida is a loner who is not particularly good at his studies or extracurricular activities. He does seem to have his heart in the right place however. When he is injured at school instead of the school nurse at the infirmary a school-mate tends to him. He develops a crush for her and soon enough the feelings are returned.