Toyoko Yamasaki

3.11 A Sense of Home

In memory of the Japanese earthquake on 3.11, each director presents a 3 minute and 11 second short film in tribute to those who were lost that day.

The Unbroken

Onchi was exiled to posts around Asia and Africa due to his work as head of a labor union for National Air Line. He is ordered to return to head office after ten years, and continues to struggle. When a National Air Line plane is involved in the worst air disaster in Japanese history, he is assigned to console and provide restitution to the families of the victims.

The Family

Set in the post-World War II climate of the 1960s in Kobe, the movie explores the struggle for power within the powerful Manpyo family.

The Great White Tower

The story contrasts the life of two doctors, former classmates and now both assistant professors at Naniwa University Hospital in Osaka. The brilliant and ambitious surgeon Goro Zaizen stops at nothing to rise to a position of eminence and authority, while the friendly Shuji Satomi busies himself with his patients and research.

The Third Will

A story about a wealthy family and the greed and selfishness of three daughters and relatives, after the passing of their old father

A Design for Dying

Shikiko Oba is nimble with her fingers and teaches dressmaking and designing. Among her pupils are Rinko, Katsumi and Tomie. Ginshiro, who is as shrewd as the shrewdest of the older generation of dyed-in-the-wool Osaka businessmen, steps into picture and Shikiko soon feels that he is indispensable to her. But the advent of a man in their midst breaks up the harmony that has existed among the four women, as gradually he forces himself on them with promises of love.

Bonchi

Kikuji is the scion of an Osaka merchant family whose traditional power is matrilineal. Instructed by his overbearing mother and grandmother to give them an heiress for the family business, he stands by helplessly as his wife is thrown out of the house for producing a son. Driven to a life of dissipation - his mistresses also fail to produce daughters - in the end he is just too tired to care.

Flower Shop Curtain

The movie depicts the strength and resilience of a woman who spent her entire life as a merchant in Semba, Osaka.

The Shop Curtain

Based on the novel by Toyoko Yamazaki.