When looking for Japanese documentaries, most of those that pop up concern historical moments, such as wars, political events or significant figures that defined the country. But there are also Japanese documentaries that stand out for astoundingly portraying the inspiring lives of unknown or average people, either with realism or a touch of heart-warming sentiment in their depiction. Here are five documentaries about people who are either unknown to the Western mainstream eye or whose daily lives do not appear, at first sight, as extraordinary. All five follow their protagonists through the years or their daily life, witnessing their thoughts, growth or even dreams.
1. Pyuupiru 2001-2008
Contemporary Japanese artist Pyuupiru has been receiving widespread appreciation for her creations for a long time. Director Daishi Matsunaga, an old friend of hers, has been filming her for eight years, collecting the life experiences ever since Pyuupiru began frequenting clubs while dressed in bizarre homemade costumes.
1. Pyuupiru 2001-2008
Contemporary Japanese artist Pyuupiru has been receiving widespread appreciation for her creations for a long time. Director Daishi Matsunaga, an old friend of hers, has been filming her for eight years, collecting the life experiences ever since Pyuupiru began frequenting clubs while dressed in bizarre homemade costumes.
- 7/22/2023
- by Federica Giampaolo
- AsianMoviePulse
Exclusive: North America’s largest festival of contemporary Japanese cinema, Japan Cuts, has selected 30 features and 12 shorts for a 2020 edition that will take place entirely online due to continued corona disruption.
Running July 17-30, the traditionally New York-based event will instead be available across the country via a digital platform set up in partnership with Festival Scope and Shift72. Films will be made available to rent with a limited number or virtual tickets per title, priced at $2–$7 with discounted bundles.
Alongside screenings, there will also be virtual Q&As, discussion panels, and video introductions from filmmakers in a bid to maintain the festival’s sense of community and dedication to intercultural communication.
The fest will kick off with a live virtual Q&a with Shinichiro Ueda, director of opening film selection Special Actors, the follow-up to Ueda’s popular breakout debut One Cut of the Dead. The festival’s Centerpiece...
Running July 17-30, the traditionally New York-based event will instead be available across the country via a digital platform set up in partnership with Festival Scope and Shift72. Films will be made available to rent with a limited number or virtual tickets per title, priced at $2–$7 with discounted bundles.
Alongside screenings, there will also be virtual Q&As, discussion panels, and video introductions from filmmakers in a bid to maintain the festival’s sense of community and dedication to intercultural communication.
The fest will kick off with a live virtual Q&a with Shinichiro Ueda, director of opening film selection Special Actors, the follow-up to Ueda’s popular breakout debut One Cut of the Dead. The festival’s Centerpiece...
- 6/24/2020
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
During his many years observing and studying people with mental and behavioral disorders, neurologist and author Oliver Sacks was able to tell amazing stories about the unique view on the world his many patients had. For instance, while many would watch a politician’s speech unable to see through the truth hidden behind rhetoric decorum and euphemisms, many of his patients diagnosed with various disorders would look past the words, concentrating on aspects such as body language and emphasis finally coming to the conclusion that the words and the behavior of the speaker do not add up. Even for those without medical training, talking to people with developmental disorders can prove to be quite eye-opening for they often reveal a unique view on the world, although their surroundings mostly reduce them to them being “not normal”.
“What Can You Do About It?” is screening at Nippon Connection 2020
In his documentary...
“What Can You Do About It?” is screening at Nippon Connection 2020
In his documentary...
- 6/15/2020
- by Rouven Linnarz
- AsianMoviePulse
Japan’s film industry is still highly insular, making films mostly by Japanese for Japanese audiences. But over the past two decades Japan-resident, non-natives have been making inroads.
They include Australian scriptwriter Max Mannix with the Kiyoshi Kurosawa drama “Tokyo Sonata,” Welsh director John Williams and Canadian producer Jason Gray with the futuristic anthology “Ten Years Japan”.
Simultaneously, more Japanese talent is going abroad to study and work. Examples include “Pacific Rim” star Rinko Kikuchi, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa who shot his upcoming “To the Ends of the Earth”) in Uzbekistan.
Two people emblematic of these trends, are husband and wife Eric Nyari and Ema Ryan Yamazaki. Son of Balazs Nyari, the president of New York post-production house Cineric, Nyari came to Japan at age 21 and in 2009 at age 28, produced his first film, the Atsushi Ogata comedy “Cast Me If You Can.” Since then Nyari has amassed more than 20 producing credits,...
They include Australian scriptwriter Max Mannix with the Kiyoshi Kurosawa drama “Tokyo Sonata,” Welsh director John Williams and Canadian producer Jason Gray with the futuristic anthology “Ten Years Japan”.
Simultaneously, more Japanese talent is going abroad to study and work. Examples include “Pacific Rim” star Rinko Kikuchi, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa who shot his upcoming “To the Ends of the Earth”) in Uzbekistan.
Two people emblematic of these trends, are husband and wife Eric Nyari and Ema Ryan Yamazaki. Son of Balazs Nyari, the president of New York post-production house Cineric, Nyari came to Japan at age 21 and in 2009 at age 28, produced his first film, the Atsushi Ogata comedy “Cast Me If You Can.” Since then Nyari has amassed more than 20 producing credits,...
- 11/22/2018
- by Mark Schilling
- Variety Film + TV
Japan Cuts, North America’s largest festival of new Japanese film, celebrates its 10th anniversary this year. For eleven straight days, Japan Cuts will present about 30 features and 20 shorts of brand-new, can’t-miss film made in and around Japan. The festival will also feature an industry panel and an unprecedented number of special guests. Watch an exclusive trailer for the festival above.
Read More: After Kurosawa: Why the Japanese Independent Film Industry is Hopeful For the Future
This year’s special guests include Lily Franky, this year’s recipient of the Cut Above Award for Outstanding Performance in Film. He will appear in “The Shell Collector,” an enigmatic film by Yoshifumi Tsubota about a blind professor who has a shellfish that holds a healing power, which will premiere at the festival on July 21st. Franky has previously appeared in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s acclaimed drama “Like Father, Like Son,” about a successful businessman who discovers his son was switched with another child after birth.
Other guests include influential auteur Sion Sono, whose credits include “Why Don’t You Play In Hell?” “Love Exposure,” “Suicide Club,” and more; he will premiere two films at the festival: his passion project “Love & Peace” as well as the black-and-white sci-fi “The Whispering Star.” Nagisa Oshima’s son, Arata Oshima, has made “The Sion Sono,” a documentary about Sono, which will be at the festival as well.
Japan Cuts runs from July 14th through the 24th. For a full list of the festival’s impressive lineup, check out the full program here.
Read More: New Restoration of Uncut ‘Godzilla: The Japanese Original’ to Premiere at TCM Film Fest, Followed by Rialto Release
Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
Related storiesExclusive: New York City's First Indie Cinema in 10 Years is Officially Opening This FebruaryNew York City Opens First Public Graduate Film SchoolNew York City is Getting Its First Independent Cinema Theater in 10 Years...
Read More: After Kurosawa: Why the Japanese Independent Film Industry is Hopeful For the Future
This year’s special guests include Lily Franky, this year’s recipient of the Cut Above Award for Outstanding Performance in Film. He will appear in “The Shell Collector,” an enigmatic film by Yoshifumi Tsubota about a blind professor who has a shellfish that holds a healing power, which will premiere at the festival on July 21st. Franky has previously appeared in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s acclaimed drama “Like Father, Like Son,” about a successful businessman who discovers his son was switched with another child after birth.
Other guests include influential auteur Sion Sono, whose credits include “Why Don’t You Play In Hell?” “Love Exposure,” “Suicide Club,” and more; he will premiere two films at the festival: his passion project “Love & Peace” as well as the black-and-white sci-fi “The Whispering Star.” Nagisa Oshima’s son, Arata Oshima, has made “The Sion Sono,” a documentary about Sono, which will be at the festival as well.
Japan Cuts runs from July 14th through the 24th. For a full list of the festival’s impressive lineup, check out the full program here.
Read More: New Restoration of Uncut ‘Godzilla: The Japanese Original’ to Premiere at TCM Film Fest, Followed by Rialto Release
Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
Related storiesExclusive: New York City's First Indie Cinema in 10 Years is Officially Opening This FebruaryNew York City Opens First Public Graduate Film SchoolNew York City is Getting Its First Independent Cinema Theater in 10 Years...
- 6/14/2016
- by Vikram Murthi
- Indiewire
[Our thanks go out to Chris MaGee and Marc Saint-Cyr at the Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow for sharing their coverage of the 2010 Nippon Connection Film Festival.]
In the past 20-years in North America we've been treated to a steady stream of comic book adaptations starting off with Tim Burton's "Batman" and continuing with every super hero from Spiderman to Iron Man. Japan has also been steadily converting their comics, properly known as manga, to the big screen, but manga encompass a much broader range of subjects than most comic books in North America. I say most because there has been a thriving underground comics scene and it too has been used for movie fodder. The best examples of this would be Terry Zwigoff's adaptation of Daniel Clowes' "Ghost World" and Shari Springer Berman's and Robert Pulcini's take on Harvey Pekar's "American Splendor". In my recent interview with manga artist and animator Akino Kondoh we talked about how in aamongst the popular manga adaptations like "Crows Zero" and "Tsurikichi Sanpei" there...
In the past 20-years in North America we've been treated to a steady stream of comic book adaptations starting off with Tim Burton's "Batman" and continuing with every super hero from Spiderman to Iron Man. Japan has also been steadily converting their comics, properly known as manga, to the big screen, but manga encompass a much broader range of subjects than most comic books in North America. I say most because there has been a thriving underground comics scene and it too has been used for movie fodder. The best examples of this would be Terry Zwigoff's adaptation of Daniel Clowes' "Ghost World" and Shari Springer Berman's and Robert Pulcini's take on Harvey Pekar's "American Splendor". In my recent interview with manga artist and animator Akino Kondoh we talked about how in aamongst the popular manga adaptations like "Crows Zero" and "Tsurikichi Sanpei" there...
- 4/18/2010
- Screen Anarchy
Berlin -- The East and the Far East are in focus at this year's Rotterdam International Film Festival, which unveiled its competition lineup Thursday. Of the 15 titles vying for Rotterdam's Tiger Awards, more than half are from Eastern Europe and Asia.
Japan has two contenders: Tsubota Yoshifumi's "Miyoko," a biopic based on the Manga artist Abe Shinichi and his wife Miyoko and "Autumn Adagio" from first-timer Inoue Tsuki, which focuses on the life of a middle-aged nun.
Anocha Suwichakornpong, whose short "Graceland" (2006) was the first Thai film included in Cannes' official selection, makes her feature debut in competition at Rotterdam with "Mundane History," a drama about a family dealing with their wheelchair-bound son. Scwichakornpong will also attend Rotterdam's CineMart, chasing funds for his next project "By the Time it Gets Dark."
Other Asian entries in Rotterdam this year include minimalist drama "Sun Spots" from China's Yang Heng and "My Daughter,...
Japan has two contenders: Tsubota Yoshifumi's "Miyoko," a biopic based on the Manga artist Abe Shinichi and his wife Miyoko and "Autumn Adagio" from first-timer Inoue Tsuki, which focuses on the life of a middle-aged nun.
Anocha Suwichakornpong, whose short "Graceland" (2006) was the first Thai film included in Cannes' official selection, makes her feature debut in competition at Rotterdam with "Mundane History," a drama about a family dealing with their wheelchair-bound son. Scwichakornpong will also attend Rotterdam's CineMart, chasing funds for his next project "By the Time it Gets Dark."
Other Asian entries in Rotterdam this year include minimalist drama "Sun Spots" from China's Yang Heng and "My Daughter,...
- 1/7/2010
- by By Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.