Shunji Iwai

One day, Lan Xia goes to her classmate Hai Feng’s house to stay overnight. They start to feel awkward around each other without really knowing why, but slowly get closer through insignificant words exchanged while doing a jigsaw puzzle of the world map. The next morning, Hai Feng realizes that Lan Xia has left without saying anything and sets out to follow her. A memory of a summer in which the world belonged to the two of them alone, if only for a moment

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A young girl named Ruka, who had been living a wandering life in Osaka, is taken in by Fumi, an elementary school teacher. Later, Ruka spends time in Obihiro, Hokkaido, with Natsuhiko, who was her sister's lover, and forms a friendship with a high school girl named Maori. However, the fate that awaits her is always harsh. After arriving in Tokyo, Ruka becomes a musician and begins singing on the streets under the name Kyrie. There, she reunites with Maori, who now goes by the name Ikko and survives in Tokyo through her ever-changing cosplay and relationships with men. From Ishinomaki, Osaka, and Obihiro to Tokyo—Ruka, while being tossed about by fate, weaves a grand lyrical poem through her determined life.

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Luca lost her family in the Great East Japan Earthquake causing her not to be able to speak. However, her singing voice shakes the hearts of those who listen to her. It is a hymn of compassion played by Luca and the people.

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The first summer to spend together with Toru. In the hot, humid room, Yuko can think only about Toru. As she peeks into Toru's room through binoculars.... The story depicts a summer day filled with love and madness of a girl who waits for her beloved to return home.

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Webseries directed by Shunji Iwai.

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An actor who has lost his job due to the coronavirus buys capsule monsters online and begins to raise them.

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Webseries directed by Shunji Iwai. Later adapted into feature film.

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It is only at their sister's and mother's funeral when a woman meets her niece after many years. The niece is now a grown girl. The sister takes on the task of informing the deceased's friends of the death while the daughter cannot bring herself to symbolically accept the demise of her mother. In the midst of all this an old flame messages the sister to say he is still in love with her, but is he messaging the living sister or the dead one?

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A girl gets a message from her mother during an stressful exam period.

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All Yuan Zhinan has left behind when she passed away is a letter and an invitation to a school reunion. Attending the reunion in lieu of her late elder sister, Zhihua accidentally runs into Yin Chuan, on whom she had a crush in her youth. As old memories are evoked, and correspondences travel through different contexts and times, Zhihua slowly uncovers the intricate story of the trio.

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Housewife Eun-ha is busy every day: In addition to taking care of her husband who doesn't help out at all and her willful daughter and son, she has to care for her nagging mother-in-law, who is nearly bedridden.

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Housewife Eun-ha is busy every day: In addition to taking care of her husband who doesn’t help out at all and her willful daughter and son, she has to care for her nagging mother-in-law, who is nearly bedridden.

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Swallowtail Butterfly 20th Anniversary concert at Inujima Seirensho Museum as part of Setouchi Triennale 2016

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Short directed by Shunji Iwai for the song Miracle by illion, Youjirou Noda's solo project, in the album "P.Y.L."

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A woman hires actors and strangers to pretend to be her friends and family at her wedding.

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A woman hires actors and strangers to pretend to be her friends and family at her wedding.

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A short film consisting of rotoscoped clips from 'Swallotwail Butterfly,' set to the music of the film's Yentown band.

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After transferring to Ishinomori Middle School, Tetsuko "Alice" Arisugawa overhears her classmates discussing a strange rumor. The previous occupant of her seat, a nondescript "Judas," is missing and presumed murdered. Amidst dealing with her mother's undesired meddling in her affairs and warding off her classmates' bullying, the troubled Alice starts to investigate the mystery surrounding Judas' disappearance. The trail of clues leads her to the house of her next-door neighbor, the quirky and reclusive Hana Arai.

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An omnibus work portraying the lives of youth who have just started to work. Town Workers was produced using rotoscoping, an animation technique which traces live-action performances. It was created in collaboration with Town Work, a part-time job magazine.

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An outwardly normal schoolteacher preys on suicidal women to slake his overwhelming thirst for human blood.

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In March 2011, Japan was struck by a catastrophic earthquake, with the devastating tsunami that followed causing a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power station that sent ripples of discontent throughout the country. Director Iwai Shunji's Friends after 3.11 (2011) is a deeply personal documentary which uses the statements of some of his closest friends to express the views of a society in a state of political despondency.

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New York, I Love You delves into the intimate lives of New Yorkers as they grapple with, delight in and search for love. Journey from the Diamond District in the heart of Manhattan, through Chinatown and the Upper East Side, towards the Village, into Tribeca, and Brooklyn as lovers of all ages try to find romance in the Big Apple.

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The life of iconic Japanese director Kon Ichikawa.

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Two teenage best pals attracted to the same boy end up scrambling his life after he walks into a door and is knocked unconscious.

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Web/video series by Shunji Iwai. Commissioned by Nestle for breaktown.com. Later adapted into feature film.

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Jam Films is a 2002 suite of 7 shorts produced by Sega/Amuse.

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Documentary following the Japanese national football team preparing for the 2002 World Cup

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The making of 'All About Lily Chou-Chou' starting from its conception as an interactive story that played out on a BBS

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ARITA is a short film told in pictures and in small moments. It is about a girl whose first friend is a small drawing named Arita, a cute nosed endearment she found everywhere. From her notebooks to her illustrations and school supplies, Arita appeared silently and still. Growing up with such a friend would raise questions and as she became older, she attempted to answer them. Iwai, one of Japan’s most exciting directors, tells a beautiful and dream-like story through the precious eyes of Ryoko Hirosue. The heavenly tint of the picture and the serene piano playing makes ARITA easily an audience favorite.

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Charts the troubled teenage years of students Yūichi Hasumi and Shūsuke Hoshino, exploring the shifting and complex power dynamics of their relationship against the backdrop of Yūichi's love for the dreamy and abstract music of pop star Lily Chou-Chou.

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A documentary looking back on the making of Shunji Iwai's TV play Fireworks, Should We See it from the Side or the Bottom?.

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In spring, a girl leaves the island of Hokkaido to attend university in Tokyo. Once there, she is asked to reveal why she wanted to go there in the first place.

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Shunji Iwai directed video for The Moonriders 1996 song “Knit Cap Man”.

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The struggles of a group of outcasts living in "Yentown", in an alternate-future Japan.

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Believing that the world will end that very day, three mental patients Coco, Tsumuji, and Satoru set out upon a journey. Walking upon the tops of the walls of the city, they seek to find a picnic spot with the best vantage point to view the final event.

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A documentary about actress and singer-songwriter Lily, who passed away in 2016 at the age of 64. The theatrical version combines live footage of "Lily + Hiroshi" recorded between 2013 and 2015 by Takama Kenji, cinematographer of "Radio Time," with additional interview footage of guests who had connections with Lily. Starring Lily, Saito Hiroshi, Takahashi Kazuya from "Between the White Keys and the Black Keys," Negishi Toki from "At the Bus Stop Until Dawn," Toyokawa Etsushi who co-starred with Lily in the 1997 TV drama "The Blue Bird," and Iwai Shunji, director of "The Bride of Rip Van Winkle," in which Lily starred.

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Hana is a normal high school student, unsatisfied in her daily life. One day she had a dream and met a 10-year-old girl living in Sengoku Era. The girl lives hard with poverty and misfortune in that world and the two are going to have a sisterhood friendship. When Hana wakes up, she is taken away by the government special agency and subject to severe scrutiny about her dream. There is something called Akashic Record and the destinies of all humans follow that record. And the future record of all mankind is gone in a month. The key to solving the problem is the girl who appeared in Hana's dream.

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The year is 2020, the middle of the corona crisis. Art student Itsuka has her graduation exhibition canceled and must take home the piece which she had been working on for a year. In a whirlpool of emotions she clashes with her worried parents, her little sister overreacts to the virus and even her usually calm friend Hirai starts to build up frustration. In the middle of all that, she re-unites with Tanaka, who gave her the opportunity to absorb herself in painting, clashes with Hirai over their true feelings and tries to face her own future.

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One day, Lan Xia goes to her classmate Hai Feng’s house to stay overnight. They start to feel awkward around each other without really knowing why, but slowly get closer through insignificant words exchanged while doing a jigsaw puzzle of the world map. The next morning, Hai Feng realizes that Lan Xia has left without saying anything and sets out to follow her. A memory of a summer in which the world belonged to the two of them alone, if only for a moment

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This is Hanataba

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A young girl named Ruka, who had been living a wandering life in Osaka, is taken in by Fumi, an elementary school teacher. Later, Ruka spends time in Obihiro, Hokkaido, with Natsuhiko, who was her sister's lover, and forms a friendship with a high school girl named Maori. However, the fate that awaits her is always harsh. After arriving in Tokyo, Ruka becomes a musician and begins singing on the streets under the name Kyrie. There, she reunites with Maori, who now goes by the name Ikko and survives in Tokyo through her ever-changing cosplay and relationships with men. From Ishinomaki, Osaka, and Obihiro to Tokyo—Ruka, while being tossed about by fate, weaves a grand lyrical poem through her determined life.

Open details →

Luca lost her family in the Great East Japan Earthquake causing her not to be able to speak. However, her singing voice shakes the hearts of those who listen to her. It is a hymn of compassion played by Luca and the people.

Open details →