Over the last few years. the Japan Foundation has set up opportunities for people around the world to watch Japanese films via streaming via Japanese Film Festival+. This year, they have teamed up with mini theatres (small independent cinemas) across Japan to programme 12 indie films for people to stream online for free.
From December 15th, people can go to the website JFF+ INDEPENDENT CINEMA to watch independent films selected by the managers of mini theatres from across Japan. This is a novel way to programme films and it offers an insight into the mini theatre ecosystem which supports Japanese filmmakers and the cultural life of local communities – the majority of films on my weekend trailer posts get played at these small venues.
The films are available to many countries outside of Japan and the films and the theatres that select them are reveal something of specific regional culture. There is ample background on each of the titles and the program is going to be complemented by interview videos with directors and actors, and interview articles with managers of the mini-theatres to give you more of an insight into the films. If you click on the links for the films below, you can read information already.
The films will be screened over two periods:
– First term: 6 films streamed from December 15, 2022, to March 15, 2023,
– Second term: 6 films streamed March 15, 2023, to June 15 2023,
Some of these are bang up-to-date titles while others are nearly a decade old so you’re going to get some views on how films have fared over time. Some directors even give advice on how to watch the films! There are dramas, documentaries, and experimental works. I’ve only seen a couple of them but can highly recommend them (links to reviews and an interview included) while the others I have heard good things about.
How can one stream the films? When the streaming period is active, just go to the website and register online by clicking on the ‘Watch for Free’ button to jump to the streaming page and sign up to create an account via your email address.
There’s the opportunity to sign up for a newsletter and offer feedback and so you can drop a message to give your thoughts and thanks for the free films. Feedback always helps and it looks like the mini theatre managers want to hear from viewers!
December 15, 2022, to March 15, 2023
Double Layered Town / Making a Song to Replace Our Positions 
二重のまち 交代地のうたを編む 「Nijuu no machi koutai-chi no uta o amu」
Release Date: February 27th, 2021
Duration: 79 mins.
Director: Haruka Komori, Natsumi Sao,
Writer: N/A
Starring: Haruka Furuta, Haruka Sakai, Leon Yonekawa, Aoshi Miura,
You can read my review here.
Synopsis: A documentary born from a project by the art unit “Haruka Komori + Natsumi Seo” who started volunteer activities after the Great East Japan Earthquake to record the memories of locals affected by the disaster. The focus is on four young travellers who visited Rikuzentakata City, Iwate Prefecture, in 2018 and how they interacted with people in the newly rebuilt area. The four all came from places far away from the earthquake, both geographically and temporally, and they put themselves in the landscape and listened to people’s memories and repeated what they heard in along with specially written dialogues. The painter and writer Natsumi Seo and the videographer Haruka Komori show how these four people participated in the Rikuzentakata workshop for the first time and bridged the gap between the past, present, and future of the land through their own words and bodies.
風の波紋 「Kaze no Hamon」
Running Time: 99 mins.
Release Date: March 19th, 2016
Director: Shigeru Kobayashi
Writer: N/A
Starring: Nobu Kurashige, Towa Amano, Hidetoshi Matsumoto, Shigeo Kogure, Tokiko Amano,
Synopsis: A documentary that follows a family who moved from Tokyo to a remote mountain village in Niigata prefecture to join a few other people making a new start. The family built their own house and grow their own rice and endure the tough climate. This documentary captures their day-to-day lives to try to understand the motivation behind the choice to leave cities behind, how they work together with others, and the rhythms of everyday life.
ワンダーウォール 劇場版 「Wanda- Wo-ru Gekijouban」
Release Date: March 06th, 2020 April 10th, 2020
Duration: 68 mins.
Directors: Yuuki Maeda
Writers: Aya Watanabe (Script),
Starring: Ren Sudo, Amane Okayama, Riko Narumi, Kazunori Mimura, Haya Nakazaki, Ryuya Wakaba, Momiji Yamamura,
Kyoto is a city famous for history, culture and universities that have played major parts in various student movements. A TV drama was made about students seeking to protect the atmosphere and ideas that are passed down at their university dormitory. It stars Riko Narumi (Shindo) and Ren Sudo (Saigo no Shinpan) and Amane Okayama (Poetry Angel). This is the movie version.
Synopsis: Konoeryo is a university dormitory in Kyoto which has a long history attached to it. So long, that it’s probably time to tear it down and build something new. However, some students want to keep the building intact and so a conflict ensues.
誰かの花 「Dareka no Hana」
Release Date: January 29th, 2022
Duration: 115 mins.
Director: Yusuke Okada
Writer: Yusuke Okada (Script),
Starring: Shinsuke Kato, Kazuko Yoshiyuki, Choei Takahashi, Misa Wada, Honoka Murakami,
The film was planned and produced for the 30th anniversary of Cinema Jack & Betty, a famous mini-theatre in Yokohama, and the film’s story is set in the same city. The film stars Shinsuke Kato (Ken and Kazu), and was directed by Yokohama native Yusuke Okuda.
Synopsis: Takaaki is a steelworker and a loyal son who visits his parents in their apartment complex. Lately, he suspects that his father Tadayoshi may have dementia as the old man is causing problems for Takaaki’s mother and sometimes confuses Takaaki for his older brother, who passed away a few years ago. When a flower pot falls from his parent’s apartment balcony, it hits someone and causes a massive scandal and Takaaki worries that his father might be behind it.
ほったまるびより 「Hottamaru Byori」
Release Date: December 12th, 2020
Duration: 37 mins.
Director: Nao Yoshigai
Writer: Nao Yoshigai (Script)
Starring: Satoko Shibata, Risa Orita, Kaho Kogure,
Synopsis: A female musician living in a traditionally built Japanese house shares her space with spirits that she cannot see. These spirits collect and deliver smells from around the house to a being inside the water of the bath tub. This whole ecosystem is done through dance and music.
旅立ちの島唄 ～十五の春～ 「 Tabidachi no Shima Uta – 15 no Aru」
Release Date: May 18th, 2013 (Japan)
Running Time: 114 mins.
Director: Yasuhiro Yoshida
Writer: Yasuhiro Yoshida (Screenplay),
Starring: Ayaka Miyoshi, Shinobu Otake, Karou Kobayashi, Saori Koide, Ryuya Wakaba, Jyo Hyuga,
A review from the Japan Times chalks this up as an impressive feature citing the fact that director, “Yoshida can universalize from the real without turning his people into case studies or stereotypes… Yoshida prefers to speak volumes with nonviolent, emotionally charged suggestion. That is, he brings an understated lyricism to what an ordinary documentary might have reduced to just-the-facts prose.” This one features Ayaka Miyoshi in an early role before she really hit the big time in the last few years – watch Dance with Me where she is absolutely stellar! – and she learned the local dialect and folk songs for her role.
Synopsis: Minami-Daito Island does not have a high school and so when teenagers hit 15 they must head to mainland Japan. Yuna Nakazato (Miyoshi) is about to make the same trip as her two older siblings leaving her father Toshiharu (Kobayashi) behind. She worries about him being left alone but she will be joining her mother Akemi (Otake), sister Mina (Koide) and brother in Naha. With her date of departure looming Yuna feels unease about her future but also has a curiosity about the wider world.
March 15, 2023, to June 15 2023
アルプススタンドのはしの方「Arupusu sutando no hashi no hou 」
Release Date: June 19th, 2020
Duration: 89 mins.
Director: Hideo Jojo
Writer: Tetsuya Okumura (Script), Hiroaki Yabu Hyogo Prefectural Higashiharima High School Drama Club (Original Stageplay)
Starring: Rina Ono, Amon Hirai, Marin Nishimoto, Shuri Nakamura, Rikki Metsugi,
Hideo Jojo has made everything from pink films to V-Cinema dramas and he turns in a wonderfully charming clean-cut coming-of-age drama with On the Edge of Their Seats. It’s an experience that flies by with sharp dialogue and performances allowing audiences to get to know the disappointments and desires of a selection of high school students considering giving up on their dreams as they watch a baseball game from the edges. It features performances from rising actors Rina Ono (POP!) and Amon Hirai (For Rei, Melting Sounds).
Here is my review
Here is my interview with Hideo Jojo
Synopsis: We are at East Iruma High School and the stands are full of people cheering on the school team in the first round of the national baseball tournament on a sweltering summer day. Up at the back, in the furthest seats away (the veritable alps of the stands), are students who are not feeling the carnival atmosphere. Two members of the theatre group, Asuha (Rina Ono) and Hikaru (Marin Nishimoto), are nursing their disappointment over a cancelled play. A former player on the baseball team named Fujio (Amon Hirai) has come to cheer despite feeling overlooked. Then there is Megumi Miyashita (Shuri Nakamura), once the smartest person in her grade but now the centre of unwanted attention as her position has been usurped by the captain of the brass band, Tomoka (Hikari Kuroki), a beautiful girl who just happens to be dating the baseball team’s star player who Miyashita has a crush on. Roving around the stands is Mr. Atsugi (Rikki Metsugi), the English teacher who is trying to boost the crowd and team with chants. As the game progresses, we get to know these characters…
戦慄せしめよ 「Senritsu seshimeyo」
Release Date: January 29th, 2022
Duration: 89 mins.
Director: Toshiaki Toyoda
Writer: Toshiaki Toyoda
Starring: Kiyohiko Shibukawa,
Toshiaki Toyoda made a massive impact with his dramas Pornostar, Blue Spring and 9 Souls. Lately, he has worked on diverse array of documentaries such as this as well as narrative films like The Miracle of Crybaby Shottan and the The Day of Destruction.
Synopsis: Filmmaker Toshiaki Toyoda recorded the collaboration between composer Koshiro Hino and Taiko ensemble Kodo over the course of one month on the small island of Sado. Their collaboration occurred during record-breaking snowstorms on the island. The film records the powerful performance of drumming are combined with shots of the snow-clad village Kodo practice in and also the natural world that surrounds them. The film was produced and then released online with the aim of creating a new musical experience in the midst of the ongoing spread of coronavirus. There is no dialogue, just sounds and images.
You can see Michael Palin visit Kodo in the 1990s in his wonderful travel documentary Full Circle.
夜を走る 「Yoru o Hashiru」
Release Date: May 13th, 2022
Duration: 125 mins.
Director: Dai Sako
Writer: Dai Sako (Script),
Starring: Tomomitsu Adachi, Reo Tamaoki, Nahana, Shohei Uno, Yutaka Matsushige, Tsutomu Takahashi, Yota Kawase,
This film aims to examine social issues through a dark narrative set in a rural city. It stars Tomomitsu Adachi of The Sower , Domains, and Hold Your Breath Like a Lover and he is given ample support from other great actors like Shohei Uno, Yutaka Matsushige (The Guard from the Underground) and Yota Kawase (Being Natural).
Synopsis: Taichi Akimoto has hit his 40s and yet he still lives with his parents and has a dead-end job working at a small town scrap iron factory where he gets little respect. His friend Taniguchi is doing a little better but still leads a boring life. Waking one morning, after a drinking session, Akimoto finds a corpse in the trunk of his car…
だってしょうがないじゃない 「Datteshou ganai Janai」
Release Date: 2019
Duration: 120 mins.
Director: Yoshifumi Tsubota
Writer: N/A
Starring: Makoto Oohara, Yoshifumi Tsubota, Machiko Kimura, Yoshinori Kimura, Tatsuyoshi Tsubota, Yoko Tsubota, Masako Tsubota, Miharu Seki, Naoko Misawa, Hiroo Shibata,
Yoshifumi Tsubota hit international festivals with The Shell Collector then followed that with something of a self-documentary that also made it onto the world stage.
Synopsis: The filmmaker, Yoshifumi Tsubota is diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) at a psychiatric hospital. He tells his mother who informs him that he has an uncle who has Pervasive Developmental Disorder and lives alone. Tsubota goes to see him.
距ててて「Hedatetete」
Release Date: May 14th, 2022
Duration: 78 mins.
Director: Saki Kato
Writer: Haruka Toyoshima (Script),
Starring: Saki Kato, Haruka Toyoshima, Keita Kamaguchi, Akemi Kanda, Ayako Yukawa,
This film features director Saki Cato playing the character Ako and the screenwriter Haruka Toyoshima playing the character San.
Synopsis: Ako, an aspiring photographer, and San, a freelancer, begin living together in a wooden house. In four offbeat and humorous vignettes, each told with a different theme, we see how the uptight and meticulous Ako gets involved with the sloppy and carefree San.
夢は牛のお医者さん 「YUME WA USHI NO OISHASAN」
Running Time: 86 mins.
Release Date: March 29th, 2014 (Japan)
Director: Yoshiaki Tokita
Writer: N/A
Starring: Tomomi Maruyama, Yui Yokoyama (Narrator)
Synopsis: This remarkable documentary charts 26 years in the life of Tomomi. As a child living in Niigata, she encountered calves in her elementary school and she and her friends took care of and spent time with them. That inspired her to be a veterinarian and the film follows her as she earned her degree, a doctorate of veterinary medicine, married and had children and, yes, got work as a highly-respected vet at the place she grew up in.