Roger Walch

Toshio and Shizuko Omiro, both over seventy years old, have lived in Kawasaki, Japan since 1981. With their free-spirited lifestyle, the improvisaton duo continues to pursue their vision of changing the world into a more peaceful one in an inappropriate and unseemly way.

A former professor of German philosophy has lost his family due to a tragic accident and has since renounced the world. As a homeless man, he has been living in Osaka's notorious "Kamagasaki" district for four years and only speaks in quotes from famous German philosophers, which earned him the nickname "The German." One day he witnesses a blindfolded and bound young woman being pushed out of the car of a Yakuza boss in the middle of the homeless neighborhood. He saves her from imminent rape and takes her under his wing.

In his exploration of the cultural dynamic between East and West, Adolf Muschg, the most significant Swiss writer since Frisch and Dürrenmatt, searched for the other in himself in order to understand otherness.

A fictionalised documentary about the great Japanese poet Bashô (1644–1694), the spiritual father of haiku poetry. A monk, portraying the poet, journeys through Japan, following Bashô's journal and writing many of his haikus. A ruminant, poetic, Zen Buddhist observation of nature – a return to the lost paradise of unspoilt nature.

Former mercenary Masahiko Yoshida (Akihiko Sai) is a private detective who is grieving over the loss of his lover (Keiko Izumi) a year ago. One day, he receives a request from a young woman (Suzune Toyama) to find her sister, Enka singer Sakura Tanizaki (Sayuri Taki), who has disappeared. What seems to be a simple missing person search soon turns into a case involving one of Osaka’s most influential yakuza gangs. Yoshida realizes that the leader of the Kosaka clan (Choshu Kagei) was also behind the murder of his girlfriend. Yoshida's only allies are his former mentor (Kan Mikami) and his two best friends, restaurant owner Tatsuo (Tatsuo Morizawa) and bartender Aya (Tsuyu). Against overwhelming odds, Yoshida fights alone in the water city of Osaka, and is drawn into more turmoil. Not unlike a sailor being lured by the sad voice of the Sirens.