Donald Richie

Teshigahara and Abe

A 2007 documentary examining the collaboration between Teshigahara and novelist Kobo Abe, featuring interviews with film scholars Donald Richie and Tadao Sato, film programmer Richard Peña, set designer Arata Isozaki, producer Noriko Nomura, and screenwriter John Nathan

A Zen Life: D.T. Suzuki

Using rare archival footage and interviews with noted artists, philosophers, and scholars such as Huston Smith, this film examines the life and teachings of D.T. Suzuki, the celebrated Japanese religious philosopher who first brought Zen Buddhism to the West. This film explores Suzuki's travels in America, his teachings on satori (enlightenment) and other Buddhist concepts, his influence on Western art and psychology, and more.

Seven Samurai: Origins and Influences

Seven Samurai: Origins and Influences, a documentary looking at the samurai traditions and films that helped shape Kurosawa's masterpiece

Under the Skin

A documentary on sixties counterculture in Japan featuring Donald Richie, Tadanori Yokoo, Masao Adachi, Koji Wakamatsu, Toshio Matsumoto and Akaji Maro among others.

Kurosawa

Documentary on film maker Akira Kurosawa

Kurosawa: The Last Emperor

A profile and history of film director Akira Kurosawa.

The Inland Sea

In 1971, author and film scholar Donald Richie published a poetic travelogue about his explorations of the islands of Japan’s Inland Sea, recording his search for traces of a traditional way of life as well as his own journey of self-discovery. Twenty years later, filmmaker Lucille Carra undertook a parallel trip inspired by Richie’s by-then-classic book, capturing images of hushed beauty and meeting people who still carried on the fading customs that Richie had observed. Interspersed with surprising detours—a visit to a Frank Sinatra-loving monk, a leper colony, an ersatz temple of plywood and plaster—and woven together by Richie’s narration as well as a score by celebrated composer Toru Takemitsu, The Inland Sea is an eye-opening voyage and a profound meditation on what it means to be a foreigner.

Rikyu

Late in the 1500s, an aging tea master teaches the way of tea to a headstrong Shogun. Through force of will and courageous fighting, Hideyoshi becomes Japan’s most powerful warlord, unifying the country.

I Lived, But...

An extremely lovely tribute to Ozu, on the 20th anniversary of his death. It uses a combination of footage from vintage films and new material (both interviews and Ozu-related locations) shot by Ozu's long-time camera-man (who came out of retirement to work on this). Surprisingly (or perhaps not), it focuses less on Ozu's accomplishments as a film-maker than on his impact on the lives of the people he worked with..

The Man Who Left His Soul on Film

Documentary about Nagisa Oshima. It includes interviews with Oshima, Donald Richie, Roger Pulvers and Paul Mayersberg

Emotion

Experimental short film depicting the life, perhaps real, perhaps a dream, of a young girl named Emi. Emi travels to the city where she encounters her counterpart, Sari, and falls in love with…a vampire?

Tokyo 1958

Eight filmmakers collaborate with Teshigahara to create a "frantic, non-stop pop newsreel". Mixing cutout animation with color and black & white photography, this snapshot documents Tokyo in 1957-58, when it had eight and ½ million people and was the largest city in the world. Pollution, bridal fashion, rites, rituals, partying-- Nearly every angle of Tokyo life is compacted into a mere 24 minutes.