Hirobumi Watanabe

Born out of every artist’s creative crisis, the search for the next topic, Hirobumi WATANABE presents his latest film, dealing with the question of what his film should be about. The director stages himself as he idles away his days, delivering endless monologs during car rides, sleeping on the floor at his grandma’s house, or philosophizing over video games and the FIFA World Cup.

Hirobumi Watanabe's student film at the Japanese Institute of the Moving Image.

Professional boxer Sota Kusunoki has gained popularity for his fighting style, where he goes headlong into his opponents. However, years of fighting have taken their toll on his body, and he is forced to retire by a doctor's stoppage. He takes the opportunity of his retirement to marry his girlfriend, Sachiko, and start a new life, but he is completely useless in society and is made acutely aware of the harsh reality of his situation. One day, a mysterious man who claims to be a fan of Sota's receives an offer to fight in an underground martial arts tournament, where he will fight for a large sum of money and where his desires are thriving... The prospect of fighting once again revives his almost forgotten excitement, and his adrenaline surges as if to fill the emptiness in him. Will the madness and honesty of a man obsessed with fighting have a happy ending or a bad one?

Arakawa Ao lives happily on his own and hardly ever leaves Shimokitazawa, where he works at a vintage clothing shop, goes to occasional concerts and hangs out at his favorite bar. Then, he gets an unusual request to appear in an independent film.

Aoi is a 17-year-old girl uncertain about her future, but one thing she’s sure of is her pride in being a junior to the legendary actor RYU Chishu, who graduated from her school a century ago. Unfortunately, she’s the only member of her high school’s film club, which now faces closure as her graduation approaches. One summer afternoon, she discovers an old, tattered script in the clubroom, sparking her imagination—who could have written it? As her thoughts run wild, Her strained relationship with her father, a homeroom teacher whose stance remains unclear—friend or foe— and navigates her interactions with a group of eccentric classmates.

In a suburb north of Tokyo that seems to be secluded from the world’s madness and malice, Yusuke Mizuhara works as a lifeguard at a swimming pool. With no family, friends or love, his life is lonely and monotonous. One day, he goes to another pool as a replacement guard with his unpopular co-worker Koji Shirasaki…

A bittersweet, hilarious, enlightening and inspirational road trip through Japanese arthouse cinemas with a heartily independent filmmaker, who also struggles to release his own movies in real life.

Takashi is country hipster, work avoiding, not-so-smart life expert in vague rural-urban area in the north from Tokyo. He lives together with his grandmother and laughs at his friend who goes to real work - shoveling cow manure. On one day, a young woman arrives to the area and claims to be Takashi's half-sister from this' father's escapade. And she is the kind you can't get easily rid off...

One day, while Seiya was calling everybody on the phone to tell them "It's me, thank you" on the rooftop of a building, a strange creature with emerald-blue fur, something he had never seen before, descended from the sky. The creature, along with its companions, claimed they had come to exterminate human race. However, through conversations with the humans they encountered, they gradually began to understand each other...

Wakaba saves her classmate Koki who was being bullied. From then on, people who are involved with Wakaba are killed one after another. When the murderer is found out, Wakaba realizes what true love is.

A four-part film done in the unique style of each director, Matusbayashi Urara gives a portrayal of a struggling actress named Machiko who lives in Kamata. Machiko is the central axis of the movie as the film comically depicts what it means to be a "woman" and an "actress" in society through showing the patterns of life as conducted by her and the people that surround her.

What happens when Watanabe meets horror? The eccentric director of instant cult movie "Techno Brothers" plays a director hired by a production company to make a documentary. His task is to spend a week in a haunted house. The approach is comical and offbeat, but as the story progresses, the laughter gives way to fear. Will we end up more scared or amused?

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Kanako Seri is on a packed bus heading to band practice. She becomes fascinated by a melody being hummed by another passenger, an old woman.

In a farming village north of Tokyo, a man lives with his aging grandmother and works day after day at a cow shed that looks like a relic from another era. Their routine repeats in tune with nature, portrayed tranquilly and persistently in black and white without words.

Poolsideman's Watanabe Brothers stamp their trademark brand of humor and melancholy on this gem of a road movie, as two Beatlemaniacs plan and then travel to Tokyo for a Paul McCartney concert.

The band "Techno Brothers" played by Watanabe, brother Watanabe Yuji and pal Kurosaki Takanori, go to find fame and fortune in Tôkyô. It’s more accurate, though, to call it their manager’s plan. Named Himuro, she channels the look and attitude of famed Vogue editor Anna Wintour, from her bobbed hair and ever-present sunglasses to her commanding air and iron will.

The latest unique human drama from Hirobumi and Yuji Watanabe portrays, in black and white and without words, a man who lives with his aging grandmother and works silently in a pigpen.

A normal day for little Riko at home and at school. A vivid snapshot pervaded by the calm flow of reality that creates an authentic sense of wonder.

A film by Hirobumi Watanabe.