Yoshi Oida

Silence

Ichizo

In the 17th century, two Portuguese Jesuit priests travel to Japan in an attempt to locate their mentor, who is rumored to have committed apostasy, and to propagate Catholicism.

Wasabi

Takanawa 'Zébra'

Hubert is a French policeman with very sharp methods. After being forced to take 2 months off by his boss, who doesn't share his view on working methods, he goes back to Japan, where he used to work 19 years ago, to settle the probate of his girlfriend who left him shortly after marriage without a trace.

Taxi 2

Yuke Tsumoto

A cabdriver and a cop race to Paris to rescue a love interest and the Japanese minister of defense from kidnappers.

The Pillow Book

The Publisher

Nagito has a fetish for calligraphy on the human body and meets her ideal soulmate Jerome, an English translator sent to Japan. However, once Nagiko's father's gay publisher rejoins the scene, the story is overtaken by treachery and bloodlust.

The Mahabharata

Drona

The Mahabharata is a 1989 film version of the Indian epic based on the history of India, Mahabharata directed by Peter Brook. Brook's original 1985 stage play was 9 hours long, and toured around the world for four years. In 1989, it was reduced to under 6 hours for television. Later it was also reduced to about 3 hours for theatrical and DVD release. The screenplay was the result of eight years' work by Peter Brook, Jean-Claude Carrière and Marie-Hélène Estienne. For the casting an international selection of actors was intentionally chosen, to show that the nature of the Indian epic is the story of all humanity.

The Last Recipe

Seimei Yo

A famous chef who is tasked with tracking down a 70-year-old missing recipe.

The Stone Council

Kamal

In France, the single translator Diane Siprien adopts an Asian baby named Liu-San in a foundation directed by Sybille Weber. Years later, a weird mark appears on the boy's chest and Diane and Liu share their dreadful nightmares. Diane is assigned for a three-day job in Germany and she leaves Liu with her friend Sybille. However, while going to the airport, Diane finds Liu hidden in the backseat and startles with an eagle flying toward the windshield, crashing her car. Liu falls into a coma and his digital recorder records the boy speaking in an unknown dialect. When Diane searches the translation and the origins of Liu, she is surrounded by mysterious murders. She discovers that the dialect is from the mystic Mongolian Tseven tribe and that Liu is a powerful Observer; further, he is in danger, threatened by sorcerers that need the boy for their Council of the Stone..

The Last Ronin

16 years after the fateful "revenge of the Forty-seven Ronin," involving samurais from the Ako domain who avenged their leader and then commited seppuku (ritual suicide), the sole survivor of that incident, Kichiemon Terasaka (Koichi Sato) traverses the country on a mission. His purpose is to find the families of the fallen samurais and spread the truth of the ronin uprising.

Show Me the Way to the Station

Fuse Kotaro

A young girl, Sayaka, develops a heartwarming friendship with an old man named Hasu. Based on an award-winning novel by Ijuin Shizu.

The Mahabharata

Drona

One of the great masterpieces of world literature comes to vivid life in an elaborate production from acclaimed theater and film innovator Peter Brook. This collection of ancient Sanskrit stories (composed into the longest book ever written) comprises a series of enlightened fables at the heart of countless beliefs, legends, and teachings; indeed, its very title means "the great story of mankind." Brook and writer Jean-Claude Carriere worked for eight years to develop this epic concerning two sides of a royal family, the Pandavas and the Kauravas, whose struggle leads to a fascinating voyage of emotions, passion and vision of glory. Briefly, the Mahabharata is a tale of two rival sets of brothers, cousins to eachother, each born into royalty and with divinely guided paths in life. The result, however, is a great war, death, destruction - a vast epic.

Adieu Paris

An old Parisian bistro with eternal charm. Eight gentlemen at the table, eight great figures. They were the “kings of Paris”… National treasures, masterpieces in peril. A well-honed ritual ... A sense of humor and self-deprecation intact. Tenderness and cruelty. Eight old friends who hate and love each other. And suddenly an intruder ...

Open at Night

Atsuhiko Dazai

One night to change everything. One night to save a theater, one night to change one's perspective about life. Luigi will push and pull Faeza with him everywhere around Paris an entire night to save his theater.

Invisible World

Segment "O Ser Transparente"

An anthology film following different stories around the theme of invisibility in the modern world.

Madame Butterfly

Butterfly's Father

Cio-Cio-San, a young Japanese geisha, seeks to fulfill her dreams through marriage to an American naval officer. Her faith in their future is shattered by his empty vows and the loss she endures touches something deep within us all.

The Tragedy of Hamlet

First Player

Peter Brook presents a new interpretation of the classic in a setting is vaguely eastern rather than Scandinavian, with a multi-ethnic cast .

Sannin Kichisa

Yasumori's retainer Yajibei/Dojo guardian

No description available

Operation Casablanca

Takahata

Mistaken for a dangerous Islamist, Saadi - a regular guy who happens to be an illegal Arab immigrant - sets out on the most dangerous day of his life. A satirical and thrilling comedy where a wrongly accused suspect gets mixed up in a worldwide terrorist plot.

The Eyes of Asia

Julião Nakaura

Julian Nakaura, a priest of the Society of Jesus, was one of four young ambassadors sent to Rome by the Jesuits in 1582, as proof that Japan had converted to Christianity. Fifty years after the mission, which so fascinated European royalty, Julian was forced again to prove his faith, only this time before a Shogun, who wanted to force him to abandon his religion. Julian resists, as does Miguel Chijiwa, a fellow at the embassy to Rome, who become a martyr. Betrayed by Cristóvão Ferreira, who cannot bear the torture, Julian suffers an inglorious death ... or maybe not. All the while, a woman wants to discover her past...

Felice… Felice…

Matsukichi

Tragic love story about the photographer and explorer Felice Beato who travelled back to Japan in 1895 to seek his former wife O-Kiku. On the way he describes in a nostalgic letter to his brother how much he yearns for his lost love O-Kiku and how impotent he feels in an ancient Japan subject to rapid change. The journey takes him to Nagasaki and Moji, Onomichi, Mount Fuji, Yokohama and Tokyo. Places he once visited with his beloved and where he now no longer understands the people. Felice...Felice... is inspired by hand-coloured nineteenth century photos taken by e.g. Felice Beato, Sjimooka Renjo and Baron von Stilfried. In this film, shot entirely in a studio, the photos depict Felice's journey. Awarded the Golden Calf for Best Feature film in 1998. (NFF)

Nô Feminist

Hiro

Gloria, Lili and Amir rehearse a Noh play under the strict direction of Master Hiro. The premiere is in a few hours, Amir has trouble concentrating due to the incessant noise of the door slamming, Lilli's awkward position on stage makes it difficult for her to perform, and Gloria, the great admirer of the master suffers from knee after injury. Nothing is going well and the master has disappeared. He is locked in his dressing room from which a thick smoke comes out. In search of their master, the three actors discover that this committed director never wrote his plays, that he stole them from his childhood sweetheart.