Isamu Hirabayashi

A mother, a father and their child are in a dark box. The child is getting a cough constantly. The mother asks the father why we are getting such a strange situation. The father says he can't understand this situation. The bombing sound can be heard from far away. What is happening now?

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Nitobe and Sakamoto are childhood friends who now work at the front desk of a capsule hotel. Nitobe has a particular fondness for philosophy and crustaceans. Sakamoto, meanwhile, is fixated on suicide. The capsule hotel draws a variety of guests, including a Finnish mother who has lost her child, a fugitive woman, and a researcher studying Daphnia. None of their lives ever intersect. They exist, but never cross, like cells in a capsule hotel. The themes of life and death are explored through a fragmentary view of the characters’ lives.

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The cycle of life, in reverse.

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Six Stories based on Six Songs.

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During an extended power outage, the members of a photoshoot begin to test the limits of their consumption.

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Shimajiro and friends embark on a journey through the desert to help young Coco reunite with her mother after being separated in a fierce sandstorm.

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An overturned dung beetle confronts social exclusion and the promises of a benevolent mountain spirit in this delightful short pregnant with meaning. -JAPAN CUTS: Festival of New Japanese Film

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This is the fourth movie starring a tiger boy named Shimajiro.

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The world presented in a series of close-ups as death begets life.

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An old man and a grandson are walking in snow. A pregnant woman and a midwife are talking in the hospital.

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Squid have 10 legs. Octopuses have 8 legs. Added together, that’s 18 legs.

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Astonishing, mysterious, eccentric, adorable, melancholic, sensual and delightful - the Volume 2 of the weird and fascinating world of Japanese independent animation which has been flourishing and stronger than ever.

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Shimajiro, who helped an injured baby whale Kuu-chan, takes care of Kuu-chan who wants to return to her mother and keeps her in touch. In order to return Ku-chan, who was about to be sent to the aquarium, to her mother, Shimajiro rides on her back and sets out on a journey toward the southern sea.

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A man kills someone on the battlefield and rescues someone in the devastated district.

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A compendium of independent Japanese animation, featuring a wide range of experimental techniques from drawn animation to pixilation.

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Shimajiro to Fufu no Daibōken: Sukue! Nanairo no Hana (しまじろうと フフの だいぼうけん ～すくえ！七色の花～?, Shimajiro and Fufu's Great Adventure: Save the Seven-Colored Flower!) is a 2013 Japanese children's live action/anime film. It's the first film to feature the character Shimajirō. The film is directed by Isamu Hirabayashi and was release on March 15, 2013.

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Two eight-year-old boys compete in a game of childish bravado. Ken is a Ninja, Nito a child soldier from the Congo who was forced to kill his own mother. Their naïve game addresses cruel realities, and they talk about their differences and what they have in common. Accompanied by contrasting graphics, the film explores the types of acts of which humankind is capable.

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I am a 66-year cicada. There was a big earthquake. There was a big tsunami. There also was a big accident.

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My name is a “cockroach”. I was called that from childhood.

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A woman and her child get trapped underground while investigators look for them.

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A man, stacks of rocks, a forest.

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This worm, born in silk, talks and sings about the history and art of his hometown.

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In the forest, a man is buried up to his waist and repeats an interminable and incomprehensible monologue. His seclusion is about to be disturbed by the arrival of a little boy.

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A human reincarnated as a maggot begins to explore the potential for his new existence and slowly succumbs to the routines of his form.

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One day a man had a strange audition for the movie. But he couldn't make acting good.

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A special Decoder allows people to have conversations with nature.

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Under a cherry tree, there's always a corpse..." After a literary opening featuring this quote from Motojiro Kajii and the image of a giant, bifurcated tree, Textism suddenly changes key and a work full of wry humor emerges. Three stories, each somewhat aloof in tone, are told using subtitles and computer-generated synthetic sounds. With its effective presentation of images, this artist's "memento mori" compels us not so much to "think of death" as to "think of text (mozi)"

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The project which makes a certain change appear by wearing. Helmut will give a shock or a burst of laughter on him who covered or the outskirts of it.

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Director Isamu Hirabayashi 21st Century Asian Design Competition (sponsored by Kyoto University of Art and Design) Grand Prize Winner

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Nitobe and Sakamoto are childhood friends who now work at the front desk of a capsule hotel. Nitobe has a particular fondness for philosophy and crustaceans. Sakamoto, meanwhile, is fixated on suicide. The capsule hotel draws a variety of guests, including a Finnish mother who has lost her child, a fugitive woman, and a researcher studying Daphnia. None of their lives ever intersect. They exist, but never cross, like cells in a capsule hotel. The themes of life and death are explored through a fragmentary view of the characters’ lives.

Open details →

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Shimajiro, who helped an injured baby whale Kuu-chan, takes care of Kuu-chan who wants to return to her mother and keeps her in touch. In order to return Ku-chan, who was about to be sent to the aquarium, to her mother, Shimajiro rides on her back and sets out on a journey toward the southern sea.

Open details →

A man kills someone on the battlefield and rescues someone in the devastated district.

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Shimajiro to Fufu no Daibōken: Sukue! Nanairo no Hana (しまじろうと フフの だいぼうけん ～すくえ！七色の花～?, Shimajiro and Fufu's Great Adventure: Save the Seven-Colored Flower!) is a 2013 Japanese children's live action/anime film. It's the first film to feature the character Shimajirō. The film is directed by Isamu Hirabayashi and was release on March 15, 2013.

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