RECENTLY ADDED:
WAKHRI (One of A Kind)
directed by Iram Parveen Bilal
Pakistan / 99 min / Drama / 2023
Inspired by the life of Pakistani influencer Qandeel Baloch, Wakhri, meaning “one of a kind,” follows Noor (Faryal Mehmood), a widowed schoolteacher raising her young son. When her candid post about women’s rights goes viral, she becomes a polarizing public figure, condemned by conservatives and celebrated for challenging a patriarchal society.
Market: Worldwide except for Pakistan and UK
FRYBREAD FACE AND ME
directed by Billy Luther
US / 83 min / Drama / 2023
Set in 1990, 11-year-old Benny (Keri Tallman), a city kid from San Diego, is sent to spend the summer with his grandmother (Sarah H. Natani) on a Navajo reservation in Arizona. Reluctant at first, he struggles to adjust. However, with the help of his cousin, Frybread Face (Charley Hogan), who speaks Navajo with their grandmother, Benny begins to connect with his culture, forming a transformative bond with his family and roots.
Market: Worldwide except North America and UK/Ireland
BE MY GUEST, BE MY BABY
directed by Mitsuhito Shiraha
Japan / 114 min / Comedy, Romance / 2024
Based on the bestselling book by Kosho Nakajima, inspired by his real-life experiences, the film follows an unconventional romance between a graduate student and a Filipina working at a bar in Japan. While researching young Filipinas employed at “Philippine Pubs” for his master’s thesis, Shota (Koji Maeda) meets Mika (Razel Ichimiya), who came to Japan to support her family back home, and gradually falls in love with her.
Market: Worldwide except for Japan
POLAR NIGHT
directed by Nagisa Isogai
Japan / 74 min / Drama / 2023
At twelve, Makoto was captivated by her enigmatic art teacher, Ira (Tomomi Kono), who vanished after being accused of misconduct. Six years later, now an art student, Makoto (Sakura Minehira) discovers Ira’s work in a gallery, and the two reunite, stirring old feelings. But Ira harbors a dark secret: she survives on human blood.
Market: ……, and non-exclusivity on VOD available after September 2026
KIKUM SPIRIT
directed by Anurin Nwunembom
Cameroon / 80 min / Drama / 2023
In modern-day Africa, a man traces the painful legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, uncovering the lost history of his ancestors, the Kikum, a proud warrior tribe. Their tragic downfall begins with the arrival of foreign “red-skinned” strangers bearing gifts. A villager’s eventual betrayal leads to the violent capture and enslavement of the community, revealing the brutal machinery of colonial oppression.
Market: Worldwide except for Cameroon
OTHER FILMS:
VIDEOPHOBIA
directed by Daisuke Miyazaki
Japan / 88 min / Thriller / 2020
Ai (Tomono Hirota) lives with her family in Ikuno, the Korea town of Osaka. Although an aspiring actress, she nowadays dresses up in a rabbit costume to earn some money. One day, she meets a man (Shugo Oshinari) at a club and spends a night with him. The following day, she comes across a porn website, which shows an explicit sex video of her encounter from the previous night. As Ai traverses the city of Osaka to look for the man in the video, she suffers from increasing anxiety that her life is spinning out of control. A cyber-thriller shot in black and white.
Market: Worldwide except for Japan
TO SLEEP SO AS TO DREAM
directed by Kaizo Hayashi
– An aging silent film actress hires a private eye and his wacky but helpful assistant to track down her missing daughter, Bellflower. The two follow a succession of bizarre, obscure clues, until they track down the location of the kidnappers and the daughter.
Japan / 81 min / B&W / 1986 / (Restored version) / 2019
2020 BFI: The Best Japanese Film of Every Year from 1925 to Now, 1986 Venice International Film Festival, New York Film Festival 1986, Benalmadena International Film Festival 1987 – Grand Prix, Figueira da Foz International Film Festival 1987 – Grand Prix, Burudentsu International Film Festival 1987’s Experimental Category – Grand Prix
Market: Worldwide except for Japan
LOVERS ON BORDERS
directed by Atsushi Funahashi
– Two stories of revenge set against historic catastrophes — Great Lisbon Earthquake (1755) & Great East-Japan Earthquake (2011), explore the human condition as they encounter similar tragedies and deja-vus.
Japan – Portugal /Japanese – Portuguese /123 min (International version) /2019
Synopsis: Koshiro, a Japanese Brazilian, and his wife Marina work at an automobile factory in Japan, where they suffer from prejudice against immigrants in 2021. After Koshiro commits a sudden suicide, Marina takes her revenge on the local society. Later in the period, Gaspar, a Portuguese aristocrat, returns from Asia with two Japanese slaves in Portugal. At his mansion he meets a charwoman, Mariana, and her beauty catches his eye. When she falls in love with one of the slaves, Gasper’s anger drives him to an extreme act. Then, Mariana’s revenge begins. Between the times, there would be connected by lost and belove.
Market: Worldwide except for Japan and Portugal
UNTIL YOU UNTIE ME
directed by Tamae Garateguy
– A young dancer in a pit of despair that leads her towards self-destruction meets a doctor, who is bearing the infamy of a malpractice case. The beginning of a spiral in which fascination and madness squirm in a nightmarish love story., and where sex explores areas of extreme fetishism
Argentina /Spanish /82 min /2017
Market: Worldwide except for Central & South America
SOUL FLOWER TRAIN
directed by Hiroshi Nishio
Japan / 97 min / 2013
Recently retired town hall worker Amamoto (Mitsuru Hirata) leaves his rural home to visit his daughter Yuki (Sayoko) in Osaka, whom he has not seen for several years. On his way to Osaka, he befriends a young woman Akane (Marin), who offers to take him on a day tour of Osaka, leading him to discover the gritty city full of surprises.
Market: Worldwide except for Japan
PUMPKIN GIRL
directed by Kentaro Yamagishi
Japan / 91 min / 2018
Nana (Rina Takeda) feels miserable as she is about to turn 30 and is stuck in a boring job with no boyfriend. At work, she learns that her colleague Asako (Orie Akiyoshi) is quitting her job to get married and is already pregnant. Nana goes home feeling increasingly desperate. That night, three bank robbers break into her apartment. Nana takes a leap of faith and joins the robbers on their escape route.
Market: Worldwide except for Japan
NOISE
– This is a story about the characters striving to grasp the string of hope within the darkness surrounding the city, the incident and the people.
Japan / 124 min / 2017 / Raindance Film Festival, Camera Japan Festival, Montreal World Cinema Film Festival and
Synopsis: Eight years have passed from the Akihabara massacre, A underground pop star whose mother was killed in the incident, a teenager who left her home to Akihabara, a delivery boy who turns his directionless anger to the city.
Market: Worldwide except for Japan
SONG LANG
– An unlikely bond forms between an underground debt collector and a cai luong “Vietnamese opera” performer against the backdrop of Saigon in the 90s.
Vietnam / 90 min / 2018 / Tokyo International Film Festival, LA Asian Pacific Film Festival
Directed by Leon Le
Synopsis: It’s 1980s in Saigon. Linh Phung is a star of a traveling Cai-luong (traditional folk opera) troupe deep in debt to a local loan shark. Dung “thunderbolt” is the enforcer come to collect. After an unlikely bond forms between the two, Linh Phung learns how a lived life is necessary for art and Dung follows art back to a life worth living.
Market:
South East – Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, plus Japan and North America
FOR IZZY
– The lives of a recovering addict and her single mother change forever when they move in next door to a widowed father and his adult daughter with autism.
US / 84 min / 2018 / LA Asian Pacific Film Festival ‘s Grand Jury Prize, Ashland Independent Film Festival’s Audience Award, Asian American International Film Festival’s Audience Award and Best Narrative Feature, Frameline SF International Film Festival’s Audience Award and Vancouver Asian Film Festival’s Jury Award and Best Canadian Feature
Directed by Alex Chu
Synopsis: When a queer photojournalist recovering from addiction and her mother move next door to an autistic young woman and her father, the lines of friendship and family dissolves as they each find the courage to overcome old patterns and self.
Market: Worldwide for SVOD and non-English speaking countries for all rights
HIROSHIMA
Japan / 104 mins / Berlin Film Festival – Best Film Award 1954
Restore version 2017
Directed by Hideo Sekigawa
Japanese classic movie about before and after atomic bombing in Hiroshima. A Japanese boy’s life is irrevocably changed after the atomic bomb levels his city Hiroshima.
Market: Worldwide, except for Japan
WEST NORTH WEST
Japan / 125 mins / Pusan Film Festival New Currents Award Nominee 2016, NY Japan Cuts Festival 2017 and Munich International Film Festival 2016
Directed by Takuro Nakamura
LGBT story between Iranian woman and Japanese woman sets in Tokyo. Kei works at a cocktail bar, while Ai works as a model. Fearing she’ll be ostracized by society, Kei chooses not to admit her sexual orientation to anyone, and as a result, she becomes distressed and lonely. One day, Kei gets close to Naima, an Iranian student studying art in Japan. Ai quickly becomes jealous of them and their budding relationship. Kei gradually becomes pessimistic as she thinks about a future with Ai, and Ai worries that she will lose Kei. In the meantime, Naima is having a hard time understanding what Kei wants despite growing closer to her. All three of them are embarrassed and insecure but eventually they begin to share their emotions.
Market: Worldwide, except for Japan
MOTEL MIST
Thailand / 115 mins / Rotterdam International Film Festival 2016, Jameson Cinefest – Miskolc International Film Festival 2016 and
Directed by Prabda Yoon
Sci-fi/Erotica indie drama sets in Thailand. In just a few hours, at an unusual love motel on the outskirts of Bangkok called Motel Mistress, our (human) lives inter twine and change forever.
Market: Worldwide, except for any Asian countries, including Thailand but excluding Japan
KEENING WOMAN
Hong Kong / 114 min / Busan International Film Festival 2016, Hong Kong Independent Film Festival 2016
Directed by Rita Hui
This is a simple story, yet with complicated emotions and subject matter. The relationship between the story and the film is always a subject matter that interests me. Other than the common film language, is there any other way of telling a story? Cotton is losing herself gradually, losing the threshold of being one single Ego and thus opening herself to other spirits. In the process of losing her individuality, there has been no fear, only a pleasant sensation with the guilt of peeping instead.
Market: Worldwide, except for Hong Kong
TAKING FATHER HOME
100 mins
Directed by Ling Ying / Drama
With little more than a pair of geese in a basket and the clothes on his back, Xu Yun, a determined 17-year old boy from rural Szechwan, China journeys to the big city to find his father, who left home six years previously and has not been heard from since. Shot without the consent of the Chinese government, Ying Liang’s Taking Father Home, depicts on a poignantly human scale the consequences of rapid industrialization.
FLY ME TO MINAMI
103 mins
Directed by Kah-wai Lim / Cross-Cultural Romantic Drama
In this coming of age story, a fashion editor, a photographer, a shopkeeper, and a flight attendant are explored over three countries. The lives, loves, and careers of these characters are chronicled in a tale of heartbreak, laughter and truth.
SANGUIVOROUS
Japan / 56 mins
Directed by Naoki Yoshimoto / Experimental Horror
A young woman suffering from mysterious physical ailments is horrified to discover that she’s descended from generations of vampires. When with her boyfriend, she struggles to control her peculiar appetite. But it’s in her blood…
SHADY
94 mins
Directed by Ryohei Watanabe / Coming of Age Horror Thriller
Winner of the Entertainment Award at the PIA Film Festival, Ryohei Watanabe’s debut film tells the tale of a dark relationship between two very different girls.
PECOROSS’ MOTHER AND HER DAYS
113 mins
Directed by Azuma Morisaki / Comedy Drama
Laid-back baby boomer Yuichi (Ryo Iwamatsu) is a middle-aged manga artist and singer-songwriter when he isn’t at his salaryman day job or watching out for his elderly mother. Suffering from increasing dementia since her husband’s death, Mitsue (Harue Akagi) is a constant source of comic energy or annoyance for Yuichi, and he and his son must soon decide if they should put her in a home for the elderly.