Shunji Iwai
It is only at their sister's and mother's funeral when a woman meets her niece after many years. The niece is now a grown girl. The sister takes on the task of informing the deceased's friends of the death while the daughter cannot bring herself to symbolically accept the demise of her mother. In the midst of all this an old flame messages the sister to say he is still in love with her, but is he messaging the living sister or the dead one?
All Yuan Zhinan has left behind when she passed away is a letter and an invitation to a school reunion. Attending the reunion in lieu of her late elder sister, Zhihua accidentally runs into Yin Chuan, on whom she had a crush in her youth. As old memories are evoked, and correspondences travel through different contexts and times, Zhihua slowly uncovers the intricate story of the trio.
Swallowtail Butterfly 20th Anniversary concert at Inujima Seirensho Museum as part of Setouchi Triennale 2016
One summer day a group of sixth-grade boys have an argument about whether fireworks are round or flat when viewed from different angles and embark on a journey for the answer during the annual firework festival. Meanwhile, one of their classmates, Nazuna, is troubled by her parents' separation and decides to choose one of the boys - Norimichi or Yuusuke - to run away with depending on who wins a race at the pool.
Prequel to 2004 coming-of-age live-action film Hana & Alice. After her parents separate, 14 year-old Tetsuko (who will soon be nick-named Alice) moves with her mother to a new town in what she calls "The Boonies" and must enroll as a transfer student in a new middle school. She immediately finds herself bullied due being assigned the seat of "Judas" who is said to have been murdered over a year before. She is told that if anybody knows his fate it would be Hana, the recluse in the house next door, who has been unable to bring herself to attend class since "Judas" disappeared.
An omnibus work portraying the lives of youth who have just started to work. Town Workers was produced using rotoscoping, an animation technique which traces live-action performances. It was created in collaboration with Town Work, a part-time job magazine.
Iwata Koichi and Kagawa Midori are second-year students at Tozaiyama High School. One day, while coming home from school, they discover a shooting star rising up in the sky. The next day, Midori sees a shining figure in school and everyone on the school grounds starts talking about a ghost. At that point, a mysterious transfer student called Yamazawa Norio suddenly arrives at the school and moves in to live next door to Koichi. Strange things begin to happen frequently around Koichi whenever Norio appears. The reason and objective of Norio’s arrival in this world is gradually revealed.
27-year-old Sakumi Shimura lost the last 10 years of her memory from a car accident. Sakumi can only remember events up to when she was 17-years-old, but she accepts her fate and tries to stay positive. Nevertheless, Sakumi is bothered by the loss of her memory. She tries to remember with the help of Yoshihiko, who thinks of himself as her boyfriend and her friend from their high school days.
Freelance writer Aoi Teshigahara (Miho Nakayama) lives in Paris, France. Sen Yagami (Osamu Mukai) is a photographer who came to Paris, France due to his younger sister Suzume's (Mirei Kiritani) insistance. Over the next 3 days, Aoi Teshigahara and Sen Yagami fall in love. Meanwhile, Suzume meets her boyfriend Kango (Gou Ayano), whom they have been in a long distance relationship.
In March 2011, Japan was struck by a catastrophic earthquake, with the devastating tsunami that followed causing a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power station that sent ripples of discontent throughout the country. Director Iwai Shunji's Friends after 3.11 (2011) is a deeply personal documentary which uses the statements of some of his closest friends to express the views of a society in a state of political despondency.
Set in Japan in the early 1990s, there's one rising band called LANDS, that is starting to find success amidst a flood of other bands. Asako and Miharu are two Tokyo high school students. When Miharu gives Asako her favorite indie rock band; a LANDS CD, she becomes an overnight fan and sets her heart on the talented guitarist Yukiya. LANDS was formed among friends, but as the band begins to climb the ladder towards major stardom, they get in touch with the dark side of the music industry, discord surfaces, inevitable frictions emerge, and unrequited love strains their friendship, threatening to pull their bonds apart.
Baton is a collection of three 20-minute Sci-fi anime films dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the establishment of Yokohama city. On Planet Abel, human-like robot Apollo (Ichihara Hayato, Rookies) and robot-like human Mikaru (Ueto Aya, Azumi) come upon a stowaway robot with a mysterious "Cipher" chip. Not knowing Cipher's powers, Apollo takes the chip for fun, throwing both him and Mikaru headfirst into a mind-boggling mystery that affects the past, present, and future.
New York, I Love You delves into the intimate lives of New Yorkers as they grapple with, delight in and search for love. Journey from the Diamond District in the heart of Manhattan, through Chinatown and the Upper East Side, towards the Village, into Tribeca, and Brooklyn as lovers of all ages try to find romance in the Big Apple.
Tomoya Kishida (Hayato Ichihara) is working as a staffer in a television studio when he hears about the death of his close friend, Aoi Sato (Juri Ueno). This sparks his recollection of the events in life they shared from meeting at a record store, shooting a short film as part of their university film club, to saying their last goodbyes. Though in love with each other, neither had the courage to confess their feelings before it was too late.
Two teenage best pals attracted to the same boy end up scrambling his life after he walks into a door and is knocked unconscious.
Web/video series by Shunji Iwai. Commissioned by Nestle for breaktown.com. Later adapted into feature film
ARITA is a short film told in pictures and in small moments. It is about a girl whose first friend is a small drawing named Arita, a cute nosed endearment she found everywhere. From her notebooks to her illustrations and school supplies, Arita appeared silently and still. Growing up with such a friend would raise questions and as she became older, she attempted to answer them. Iwai, one of Japan’s most exciting directors, tells a beautiful and dream-like story through the precious eyes of Ryoko Hirosue. The heavenly tint of the picture and the serene piano playing makes ARITA easily an audience favorite.
Charts the troubled teenage years of students Yuichi Hasumi and Shusuke Hoshino, exploring the shifting and complex power dynamics of their relationship against the backdrop of Yuichi's love for the dreamy and abstract music of fictional pop star Lily Chou-Chou.
Extra, behind scenes from Hideaki Anno's film Ritual (2000) or Shiki-Jitsu.
A documentary about Shunji Iwai's film "Fireworks, Should We See It from the Side or the Bottom?".
In spring, a girl leaves the island of Hokkaido to attend university in Tokyo. Once there, she is asked to reveal why she wanted to go there in the first place.
The scientist wants to prove that mermaids exist, which was the reason why he was pulled out from scientists circle in Japan. He settles down in Australia and refuses on his hypothesis. A Japanese student comes to him in Australia and gives him strange questions about mermaids. After the student a journalist comes and is interested to know how the young man survived in the ocean and why he doesn't remember anything.
Swallowtail Butterfly takes place in an alternate Japan, in a ghetto where immigrants from all over the world have come to live and make their fortune. The city is called Yentown, and it is much like Tokyo. Sixteen-year-old Ageha (Ito), a young girl whose mother has just died, is passed on from person to person until a prostitute named Glico (Chara) finally takes pity on her. Under Glico's care, Ageha has many experiences with the other poverty-stricken immigrants in Yentown. Eventually, due to a sudden twist in fate, the immigrants are given a chance to realize their dreams. But in doing so, they destroy their solidarity, and have to face their problems separately.
One summer day a group of sixth-grade boys have an argument about whether fireworks are round or flat when viewed from different angles and embark on a journey for the answer during the annual firework festival. Meanwhile, one of their classmates, Nazuna, is troubled by her parents' separation and decides to choose one of the boys to run away with.
When exchanging letters two women discover new things about a deceased man they used to know.
Moemi is not overly pleased when Yukio brings home a couple of turtles to keep her company. Their lives seem reasonably happy until she has her braces removed, and Yukio finds kissing her less satisfying. She soon starts tying up everything in her sight with knotted twine, starting with the turtles. A psychiatrist diagnoses "Obsessive Knot-Binding Syndrome" due to deficiencies in her relationship with Yukio. Moemi continues to expand her activities, tying herself in knots with cords stretching across the apartment. The doctor tells Yukio that her illness has reached a critical point, and that he should tie her up that evening. This he proceeds to do, with her encouraging him to bind her more and more. Where will this end?
A salesman from Delta Works, a London-based computerized database, offers a one month free trial that seems uninteresting until he mentions that an operator, always selected from a group of young women in their 20's nick-named "Delta Ladies", will also be supplied in the trial period. Poo arrives at the one-man Aida Detective Agency with the Delta Mazelan 'F' Series hardware. A dragon fish has been stolen by Tetsu Tobiyama and biologist Thomas Earwing seeks its return (the Super-Red variety is worth 10 million yen). The system fails to provide info about Tetsu, but Poo worms her way into a top secret file at Delta headquarters, finding that he supplies trained assassins for use worldwide. Searching tropical fish outlets where Tobiyama shops for supplies, Poo is led to Natsuro, living alone with fish tanks, one of which contains a dragon fish. This enigmatic young man is not only mysteriously attractive to Poo, he also seems to attract the attention of hit men aimed at him.
Agreeing to move out of his old apartment early to help out others, Ichiro shows up unexpectedly to move into his new place on Christmas Eve, a couple of weeks ahead of schedule. As he starts to unpack, he is beset upon by a series of salesmen at his door and as a result he is already not in the mood to make concessions when two strangely dressed and mannered visitors, Nana and Mel, arrive and insist that he and his possessions are in the way of their plans to hold a Christmas party they cannot re-schedule. In the ensuing see-saw battle over possession of the premises, the pair seems to have some unfair advantages. For instance, Ichiro finds it frustrating that only he seems to be able to see the odd pair. Whether or not Ghost Soup can be made and served hangs in the balance.
Three stories: 1 - A tree that prefers blood. 2 - A woman stressed with uncontrolled time. 2 - A man who believes his daughter is a demon
Bussinesman Yohei Kogure is being treated for a psychosomatic disorder. He's forgetful and regularly dreams about a girl who he believes to be his daughter.
1991 short television movie directed by Shunji Iwai. A horror/thriller inspired by Paul Auster's Ghosts. A professional hitman comes to kill a man as his final job. He manages to shoot him to death, but when he is leaving the house, the man he killed shows up again.
