Masahiro Hara

During a quest to find a Taiwanese father's grave, disturbing memories of child abuse are aroused.

Physically separated from her father and at odds with her distraught mother, a girl must negotiate her own passage to maturity.

Commencing well-respected Nippon director Kazuo Kuroki's sixth decade behind the camera, "A Boy's Summer in 1945" (literally "A Beautiful Summer in Kirishima") is a lyric, novelistic drama set in the countryside in the last days before Japan's surrender ending WWII. Striking a welcome retro note in its languid pacing and delicate handling of seriocomic ensemble threads, handsome production is a natural for fests. It might also prove a cornerstone for retrospectives or ancillary releases of works by a helmer ("Preparation of the Festival," "Ronin-gai") who's long been appreciated at home but has won just limited attention abroad.

At an all-girls school, a group of girls prepare for a stage performance of Anton Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard".

Ambitious insurance saleswoman Miyako is stalked by by the strange and supernatural after meeting the mysterious Mitsuru.

The story revolves around Keiko, an ordinary office worker, and the extreme situations of the tenants living in various apartments. Their lives become intricately entangled, leading to a series of highly unusual coincidences that eventually culminate in a chaotic uproar.

Yûji and Kosaku are hired to track down an old man. But when he suddenly dies, his granddaughter surfaces with a map to his buried fortune, which the yakuza and a dirty cop are determined to find.

A hard-boiled story about a young man who wakes up to the ferocity within himself, swaying between violence and love as he walks a devastating path.