Takanobu Kato

Confronting half of her mother’s life—her mother who had survived the Jeju April 3 Incident—the director tries to scoop out disappearing memories. A tale of family, which carries on from Dear Pyongyang (YIDFF 2005), carving out the cruelty of history, and questioning the precarious existence of the nation-state.

The documentary on Yamazaki Hiroaki, the student died in the First Haneda Incident of 8 October 1967.

A companion piece to The Wages of Resistance: Narita Stories, which dealt with the protests against the construction of Narita Airport. Depicts the lives of youth who fought alongside farmers against the nation state. Farmers launched a protest movement after the government decided to build a giant airport on the farming land of Sanrizuka in Narita City. Youth who believed in their ability to change the world supported the farmers' protests. Fifty years have gone by. The camera examines what used to be there and brings to light the past era buried beneath Narita Airport.

On April 1, 1945, the United States military launched its invasion of the main island of Okinawa, the start of a battle that was to last 12 weeks and claim the lives of some 240,000 people. This film depicts the Battle through the eyes of Japanese and American soldiers who fought each other on the same battlefield, along with Okinawa civilians who were swept up in the fighting. The film also depicts the history of discrimination and oppression forced upon Okinawa by the American and Japanese governments. Carrying up to the current controversy over the construction of a new base at Henoko, the film explores the root causes of the widespread disillusionment and anger expressed by many Okinawans. This ambitious documentary was directed by the American John Junkerman, long-term resident of Japan and Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker. Okinawa: The Afterburn is a heartfelt plea for peace and an expression of deep respect for the unyielding spirit of the Okinawa people.

Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Duc H. Nguyen follows the stories of Vietnamese refugees who have been living in a condition of statelessness in the Philippines for 16 years while awaiting a rare opportunity for resettlement in the United States.

On March 11, 2011, a tsunami struck the coast of Fukushima causing the meltdown of a nearby power plant. Within 24 hours the population within a 20-km radius was ordered to evacuate. Shortly thereafter Toshi Fujiwara entered the so-called "No Man's Zone," interviewing those who either could not or did not want to leave. Haunted by imperceptible traces of radiation, Fukushima has been transformed into an atmosphere of silence and disintegration, a land of cherry blossoms and ghosts in white protective clothing.

Arata Furuta plays a disgruntled saleryman fed up with being stepped on at home and at work, decides to get revenge on those who do bad things by killing them, only to gain a group of followers.

Following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, hundreds of thousands refugees took the perilous escape route across South China Sea to find freedom. Many died of drowning or starvation and thirst. Others were lost at sea, or robbed and killed by pirates. More than 30 years later, no major film or television program has told their stories. Bolinao 52 presents this long-silenced voice, an unspoken legacy of the Vietnam War. Filmmaker Duc Nguyen, also a boat refugee, retraces the odyssey of Bolinao 52 – a vessel adrift on the sea for 37 days—and a survivor Tung Trinh as she returns to her past to tell her story.

Documentary about the great Japanese documentary maker Tsuchimoto Noriaki made a couple of years before his death.

A mysterious stranger comes into a lawless town run by a kingpin and starts shooting up the place.

Four crooks rob a jewelery shop, then head for an abandoned factory where they plan to fence the goods to the Yakuza. Unfortunately, their chosen location happens to be the same place where American scientists had previously experimented on resurrecting the dead.

This film is a record of the first Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival. It reflects the various ways the festival was given shape by nascent global changes embodied by Perestroika, the Tiananmen Square massacre, and many other contemporaneous events.