Matsuo Takahashi

가와세 아이는 24년 전에 사라졌던 자신의 딸 미와의 소식을 듣는다. 기억을 잃어버린 딸이 다른 이름으로 살고 있었으며 최근 아동 유괴범으로 경찰에 체포당했다는 것이다. 큰 혼란에 빠진 아이는 서둘러 딸을 만나지만 두 사람이 진짜 모녀란 것을 확신할 수 없다. 그리고 아이의 눈에 깨진 거울이 들어온다. 그녀의 집에 있는 것과 똑같이 깨진 거울을 보며 아이는 과거를 떠올린다.

Set in Sapporo during the oil crisis of the early '70s, the film centers on the Hokkaitei soba stand run by a stoic patriarch and his perky wife. One New Year's day, a haggard-looking mother and her two adorable moppets poke their heads into the restaurant and ask for a single bowl of kakesoba. Noticing that the trio is looking a little low in the heels, she puts in an extra scoop of noodles. The youngest boy declares that the soba is delicious. The next year, the same threesome appears again asking for one bowl of kakesoba. This time the old man dumps in two helpings. He is struck by how much the youngest looks like their own son who was hit by a truck three years previous. The following year, the three return and this time the mother tells her story...

A middle-aged man's family loses patience with him as he struggles with his seemingly directionless life.

Going through life without legs, 12-year-old Kenny is active and enthusiastic, resisting the pressure to wear prosthetic limbs. He also finds himself the subject of a documentary made by a visiting French film crew. As the production unfolds, Kenny’s parents, brother, and absentee sister bring long-simmering tensions to the surface, shaking Kenny’s delicate sense of balance. Determined to better understand his place in the world, he hits the road for a daring journey of self-discovery.

During the winter in Toyama in 1962, Tatsuo Mizushima is fretting about his feelings for his classmate Eiko Tsujisawa while agonizing about his upcoming high school examinations. When he was little, he and Eiko had heard that in April of a year when the winter has been very harsh, any couple finding fireflies together needs to get married. However, his family's situation does not allow Tatsuo to continue his worrying about such things for very much longer.

An old woman has died and her widower with dementia confesses to killing her. After this, the story goes back in time to show the events leading up to her death.

An old woman has died and her widower with dementia confesses to killing her. After this, the story goes back in time to show the events leading up to her death.

Fictionalized account of 20-year-old Noriko Tsuji, a real-life victim of a severe birth defect which afflicted 8,000 Japanese, children whose mothers took the sedative thalidomide during pregnancy. Tsuji has stunted flipper-like arms amputated at the behest of a father who deserted her soon after her birth. Nonetheless, the resourceful Noriko uses her feet to accomplish most of the tasks others would do with their hands.

“In Search of Unreturned Soldiers was about former soldiers of the Japanese army who chose not to return to Japan after the war. I found several of them who had remained in Thailand. Two years later, I invited one of them to make his first return visit to Japan and documented it in Outlaw-Matsu Returns Home. During the filming, my subject Fujita asked me to buy him a cleaver so that he could kill his ‘vicious brother.’ I was shocked, and asked him to wait a day so that I could plan how to film the scene. By the next morning, to my relief, Fujita had calmed down and changed his mind about killing his brother. But I couldn’t have had a sharper insight into the ethical questions provoked by this kind of documentary filmmaking.” —Shôhei Imamura