Takashi Echigoya

Cenote

Cenotes—sources of water that in ancient Mayan civilization were said to connect the real world and the afterlife. The past and present of the people living in and around them intersect, and distant memories echo throughout immersive scenes of light and darkness.

Domains

Aki and Naoko are childhood friends who are drifting apart as adults. Immersed in her family life, Naoko now has a husband and daughter; Aki, on the other hand, remains single and is on leave from work due to a personal crisis. The plot might sound familiar but it has never been told like this. The director Kusano Natsuka stages the interactions through an actors’ table-read and, as the lines are repeated, the scenes gradually develop into on-location conversations. Moreover, she repositions the dramatic peak of the story to the beginning: Aki has murdered Naoko’s daughter.

Body Drop Asphalt

A young Japanese woman named Eri is intelligent and promising, but remains mired in depression and alienation. She wanders life like a ghost, articulating her suffering perspectives in repetitive thoughts and journals. Everything changes when she decides to write a romance fantasy for the way she wished things would go, including an alter ego named Rie meeting a man named Fuyuki in love at first sight. Her debut novel "Soft Cream Love" is a huge hit, and Eri is catapulted to wealth and circles of admirers. Shy, she blows her chance to meet a cute guy and instead makes a pass at her clumsy unattractive agent named Hoshino, who walks away with his cynical attitudes born of romantic disappointment. When she pursues him into the street, she by chance meets a nice guy just as she hoped, but he never shows up at their first date because, unknown to her, he's hit by a car.

Kazuo Ohno

Kazuo Ohno, Father of the Butoh Dance, first appeared on stage at the age of 43. He left the stage only at the age of one hundred, three years before he died. This short, dialogue-less film presents the exceptional range of expressions that this Japanese dancer could achieve, both with makeup and costumes and without.

Twilights

The surrealistic adventure of a young boy who refuses to admit his own death.