Toshio Matsumoto

In 1960s Tokyo, Gonda owns a bar in which the gay, cross-dresser, and trans scenes meet. Gonda is in a relationship with the madam of the bar, Leda. As the younger Eddie starts a passionate affair with Gonda, she ignites the jealousy of Leda, unaware of another kind of history between them.

A young man murders his new bride and goes insane. He wakes in an asylum with no memory, left in the hands of two mysterious doctors who relate his condition with his biological identity.

Gengobe Satsuma, an exiled samurai cast out as an Asano clan retainer, is given a second chance to join his brothers in arms to become the 48th Ronin against the Shogunate. His faithful servant gathers the 100 ryo required for his acceptance. Gengobe is also in love with a greedy geisha named Koman. About to be sold to another man, Gengobe learns that in order to keep her, her debt is exactly 100 ryo.

'Ki or Breathing' is a spare concoction assembled from slow motion shots of nature and set to a score by the much-acclaimed Tohru Takemitsu.

Documentary about the relationships between mothers and their children.

Towards the end of WWII, a black American pilot is captured and imprisoned by rural Japanese villagers, who await official instructions as to how to proceed with their 'catch'.

Silver Wheel (Bicycle in Dream) is a PR film that was produced to promote the export of bicycles. However, Matsumoto Toshio, who was an employee of the Shin-riken Pictures, which had been contracted to produce the film, asked for the cooperation of Yamaguchi Katsuhiro, Kitadai Shozo and Takemitsu Toru, at the time members of Jikken Kobo, and also invited the participation of Tsuburaya Eiji, the leading expert in the field of special effects. Therefore, this work depicts a young boy’s dreams concerning a bicycle, while making the most of the realistic and materialistic character of bicycle parts and of surreal and fantasy-like scenes. Due to the course of its production and the fresh images and music used, this was seen as being the first example of experimental cinema in postwar Japan.

Repetitive abstract experimental film. A bearded man flickers past a hundred times.

Video began as a medium that inspired discovery. This art documentary traces the expressive roots of “media art” in Japan — works of video, performances, and installations created using video technology that allowed for free and creative visual expression.

Matsumoto's last video was produced by Sano Gallery. Matsumoto set the common theme as “Seeing” in 2009, six co-writers participated to directing the omnibus film, "Seeing". Initially, there were no plans to expand it into trilogy, and Matsumoto was also limitedly involved in the work. Later, Matsumoto envisioneds works that pursued the omnibus format, and sets up a common theme of "memory.” Afterwards, Matsumoto begun the production of Pilgrimage into the Memory, a reconstruction of works produced by five participating artists. However, the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred while producing the work. Matsumoto shocked by the earthquake and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, he decided to produce a new work, All Things Change, and titled it's trilogy, Toro no Ono Daisambu. The third part, All Things Change, consists of videos produced by Tanotaiga, Kanako Inaki, Hiroyuki Oki, Okuno Kunito, and Tanako Tanaka.

An early experimental film by Toshio Matsumoto. Produced as part of the student riots in Japan at the start of the 1960s, Matsumoto uses collage, archival footage, and impassioned narration to create an expressive, visceral criticism of the US-Japan Security Treaty.

While extracting and polishing their blocks of stone, stonecutters used to say “the stone is coming to life". This paradox provided Matsumoto with the best metaphor for what making a film is all about. In his opinion, filmmakers work images in the same way that stonecutters work stones.

A short documentary about a trailer weighing over 300 tons that carries material for the construction of a dam toward Tokyo.

A documentary on sixties counterculture in Japan featuring Donald Richie, Tadanori Yokoo, Masao Adachi, Koji Wakamatsu, Toshio Matsumoto and Akaji Maro among others.

A documentary focusing on the things and animals necessary for the Olympics in Tokyo in 1964.

Engram is a three-part piece revolving around a few good old ideas such as photos inside of photos, movies inside of movies, photos inside of movies, movies inside of photos, and (even) a film director inside a TV set.

In Connection, a static shot of the sky with moving clouds is subdivided into regular geometrical regions, which are then individually (and rhythmically) manipulated.

A 20-year-old drifter and a precocious 16-year-old girl slowly form a bond in a small town haunted by its wartime past.

A mesmerizing trip through the psychedelic vastness of space.

A paranoid girl is haunted by the frightening manifestations of her hypnophobia. She is at odds with the waking world as she attempts to get away from the decaying figure in black.