Ah-So Graham Norton

This one-off TV special follows the exploits of camp comic Graham Norton on a visit to Tokyo. Staying with a Japanese family, he explores the city's seedy side, visits the home of a famous Japanese make-up artist, and has an embarrassing experience with an electronic toilet/bidet.

2001-01-05 | en

Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory

Working men and women leave through the main gate of the Lumière factory in Lyon, France. Filmed on 22 March 1895, it is often referred to as the first real motion picture ever made, although Louis Le Prince's 1888 Roundhay Garden Scene pre-dated it by seven years. Three separate versions of this film exist, which differ from one another in numerous ways. The first version features a carriage drawn by one horse, while in the second version the carriage is drawn by two horses, and there is no carriage at all in the third version. The clothing style is also different between the three versions, demonstrating the different seasons in which each was filmed. This film was made in the 35 mm format with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and at a speed of 16 frames per second. At that rate, the 17 meters of film length provided a duration of 46 seconds, holding a total of 800 frames.

1895-03-22 | fr

Peace

What is peace? What is coexistence? And what are the basis for them? PEACE is a visual-essay-like observational documentary, which contemplates these questions by observing the daily lives of people and cats in Okayama city, Japan, where life and death, acceptance and rejection are intermingled.

2010-01-05 | ja

Cat Nation

A journey into the unique, often bizarre, world of Japanese cat culture. Cat themed cafes, bars, temples, cat islands, cats with human jobs, cat friendly businesses, and the origins of the iconic beckoning cat statue.

2017-07-20 | en

Ainu Neno An Ainu

This documentary started as part of a photography project about the indigenous Ainu population in northern Japan, portraying people from tightly knit communities. They feel deeply connected by their culture and tradition. With gorgeous pictures, the directors explore how different generations of Ainu reflect on their identity after centuries of oppression.

2021-06-01 | ja

The Great Happiness Space: Tale of an Osaka Love Thief

Welcome to The Great Happiness Space: Rakkyo Café. The club's owner, Issei (22), has a staff of twenty boys all under his training to become the top escorts of Osaka's underground love scene. During their training, they learn how to dress, how to talk, how to walk, and most importantly, how to fake relationships with the girls who become their source of income. Join us as Osaka's number one host boy takes us on a journey through the complex and heartrenching world of love for sale in the Japanese underground.

2006-01-22 | en

Battle of Okinawa in Color

By mid-1945, Hitler is dead and the war has ended in Europe. Halfway around the world, however, the fighting is still going strong on a small island in the Pacific. Okinawa was the site of the last battle of the last great war of the 20th century, with a casualty rate in the tens of thousands. Through it all, military cameramen risked their lives to film the conflict, from brutal land combat to fierce kamikaze attacks at sea. See the footage they captured and experience this intense battle the way the soldiers saw it -- in color.

2017-06-25 | en

The Cove

The Cove tells the amazing true story of how an elite team of individuals, films makers and free divers embarked on a covert mission to penetrate the hidden cove in Japan, shining light on a dark and deadly secret. The shocking discoveries were only the tip of the iceberg.

2009-07-31 | en

I Am a Truck

Worldy renowned for his masterpiece The Housemaid (1960), Kim Ki-young debuts with his first short film I Am a Truck (1953), which was sponsored by UN and made a year after the armistice of the Korean War. This film is a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a soon-to-be powerful auteur and influential filmmaker in the post-war Korean cinema, if not the whole history of Korean cinema.

1953-01-01 | ko

Manufactured Landscapes

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is the striking new documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris.

2006-09-09 | en

Dream Girls

This film is about Japanese women, escape, glamour and dreams. The Takarazuka Revue is an enormously successful spectacular where the all-women cast create fantasies of erotic love and sensitive men. It is also a world for young girls desperate to do something different with their lives. In return for living a highly disciplined and reclusive existence, they will be adored and envied by many thousands of Japanese women. They will look, act and behave like young men while having no real men in their lives. Dream Girls explores the nature of sexual identity and the contradictory tensions that face young women in Japan today.

1994-08-17 | en

Violated Paradise

A modern geisha travels through Japan trying to find a job as entertainer, and ends up by finding love and a job as ama, a pearl diver.

1963-06-07 | en

The Making of a Japanese

Intimately following 1st and 6th graders at a public elementary school in Tokyo, we observe kids learning the traits necessary to become part of Japanese society.

2024-04-05 | ja

L'empire du sushi

2008-01-11 | fr

Kampai! Sake Sisters

Sake is a traditional alcoholic beverage from Japan and is otherwise known as rice wine. Women were prohibited from entering the many large and small sake breweries dotting Japan for centuries. However, times have changed and women are present on the sake scene today. In several cases, they are integral to the Japanese brewery business. The documentary depicts women who are not only enthusiasts, but also leaving their marks on the evolution of this Japanese mainstay.

2019-08-16 | ja

Megacities

Megacities is a documentary about the slums of five different metropolitan cities.

1998-08-12 | en

Atlas

The concept of machine-made knit was known as early as the 1850s, but it was only during the 1920s that the quality of the material had improved. When the plant known as "Atlas" was introduced in 1931, the shop windows drew a lot of attention, and Aho & Soldan was ordered to make a promotional film. In this well-paced film, we see the jersey production step by step.

1931-12-31 | en

Beetle Magic

In 1934, the celebrated Austrian engineer Ferdinand Porsche was commissioned to create a car for the German people which could be manufactured by the state and sold for less than a thousand Reichsmarks. In the 1990s, the familiar style of the car originally known as the KdF-Wagen "Strength through Joy" car remains virtually unchanged... and in terms of popularity, still remains its special role as 'the people's car'. Now, the makers of Mini Magic, GTi Magic and MG Magic take you deep into the heart and soul of ageless VW Beetle territory for a fascinating exploration of Beetle 'magic'.

2010-11-24 | en

Kizu: The Untold Story of Unit 731

Documentary about Japan's Unit 731 of World War II.

2004-01-01 | fr

The Japanese Version

How the Japanese process American pop culture and make it their own -- a mind-bending odyssey through cultural mixing.

1991-02-01 | en