Movies: Atsushi Shinohara

Based on the novel "Kanojo no Jinsei wa Machigai ja Nai" (literal translation: Her life is not at fault) by Director Hiroki, it is a powerful story of survivors, who are all trying to find their own silver linings in life....

A teenager girl's accidental death incites a media frenzy and causes her harsh father to turn his rage against those he believes are responsible....

Prodded by a friend request, a feckless forty-something recalls his past relationships from the 90s onward, looking for his vanished hopes and dreams....

Adapted from Kabei Yukako's novel of the same name. After being guided by a mysterious message from the past on a cellphone's answering machine, Umi encounters Mahiro, a delinquent at her school. They gradually come closer, but more messages appearin...

A former couple remembers their most intimate days, only to part once again. A bittersweet love story inspired by a Jim Jarmusch masterpiece, set in times of the COVID-19 pandemic....

The school’s handball club is about to close down. Can social media bring it back to life? Masao Kiyota is a high school student living in Japan’s southern Kumamoto Prefecture. Lacking passion for anything in life, he spends his days like so many yo...

Aiko saw her parents murdered by the Yakuza when she was young. She grows up to become a killer to avenge her parents. her quest becomes more complicated when she learns her target is also and orphan and also has a blind daughter....

Eight years after the devastating tsunami, the wounds it left in Japan have still not healed. In her touching search for answers, Haru sets out on a long, eventful journey to her home town, where she lost her family in the flood....

Nagasaki in 1986. Hisada, who lives with her affectionate parents and her younger brother, although there are many quarrels between couples, is a fifth grader who loves Yuki Saito and Exogini. Hisada decides to go to Boomerang Island to "see the dolp...

A telephone call informs Ituski that his father has collapsed. He still cares, but father and son have not had the best of relationships. Ayumi is a professional mover and misses having a father. These men are unconnected and unrelated, but their pas...

A depressed widower, a bored housewife, and a gay lawyer all intersect in this triptych of love lost....

Ai's mother sends her to live with a cult commune, where she remains for seven years. After the cult is broken up by the police, Ai struggles to fit in with society....

In the wake of the social unrest caused by the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, two female sumo athletes, Kiku and Tokachi, and an anarchist group called the Guillotine Society, spark an unlikely connection....

Asuka Goda is a 40-year-old pastry chef who runs a sweets store. She works with pastry chef Seiya Hanada, who is younger than her, and Kenichi Gonda, who wants to become a pastry chef. One day, Seiya Hanada confesses to Asuka Goda about his feelings ...

An omnibus collection of six short films the stories are the result of skull sessions at workshops lead by writer and director Ryosuke Hashiguchi. The film depicts body-length tight fetishists called Zentai. The members of the group convene at a kara...

A road movie about Yoko, a frustrated part-time worker who hitchhikes to her hometown of Hirosaki, Aomori, where she has not returned for 24 years, after hearing the news of her father's death....

The yakuza have their best days behind them and are only a shadow of themselves. The old rituals seem out of date and their tattoos make them outcasts of society. The inexperienced student Ryō stumbles into their ranks by chance, and before he knows ...

A compelling human drama about the growing social problems and public responsibilities regarding the welfare and ethical treatment of neglected dogs and cats at animal shelters. The story is told through the eyes of tormented vets who are relentless...

A neighbor dies when potted flowers fall from a balcony of an apartment complex. A man whose father suffers from dementia begins to question if it really was an accident....

Suffering from heartbreak and asthma, 23-year-old Toshiyuki pushes the limits of his body to chase the ghost of his recently deceased boyfriend against the black-blue backdrop of Tokyo’s cityscape. -JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film...