Chiemi Karasawa
Directing
Known For

A group of bored, disaffected New York City teenagers spend a day skating, smoking, drinking, partying, deflowering virgins, and getting into fights.
Kids

Armed men hijack a New York City subway train, holding the passengers hostage in return for a ransom, and turning an ordinary day's work for dispatcher Walter Garber into a face-off with the mastermind behind the crime.
The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3

Charlie Kaufman is a confused L.A. screenwriter overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy, sexual frustration, self-loathing, and by the screenwriting ambitions of his freeloading twin brother Donald. While struggling to adapt "The Orchid Thief," by Susan Orlean, Kaufman's life spins from pathetic to bizarre. The lives of Kaufman and Orlean's book become strangely intertwined as each one's search for passion collides with the other's.
Adaptation.

After his long-time girlfriend dumps him, a thirty-year-old record store owner seeks to understand why he is unlucky in love while recounting his "top five breakups of all time".
High Fidelity

A Black hitman who models after the samurai of old finds himself targeted for death by the mob.
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai

An anthology of eleven vignettes featuring star-studded casts of extremely unique individuals who all share the common activities of conversing while drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.
Coffee and Cigarettes

Martin Scorsese’s portrait of writer and social commentator Fran Lebowitz, celebrated for her sharp wit and observations on modern life. Filmed at New York’s Waverly Inn and intercut with archival footage and interviews, the documentary captures Lebowitz’s distinctive worldview through her spontaneous monologues and public appearances.
Public Speaking

Ironworker Nick lives with his wife, Kitty, and three daughters. When he meets a significantly younger woman, Tula, he starts an affair with her, much to the chagrin of his wife, and his life is thrown into upheaval. Kitty kicks Nick out of the house, and he is forced to make some difficult decisions.
Romance & Cigarettes

In 1981 New York City, a collection of twentysomethings try to cope with relationships, loneliness, desire and their individual neuroses on New Years Eve.
200 Cigarettes

A behind-the-scenes documentary about the recording of Aretha Franklin's best-selling album finally sees the light of day more than four decades after the original footage was shot.
Amazing Grace

When Harry Levine, an aging, unsuccessful Greenwich Village writer, is fired from his job as restaurant doorman, he calls on friend and mentor Jake, ostensibly to collect a long-standing debt.
Chinese Coffee

Although Mary has little income, she still finds ways to spend her nights at clubs. After being arrested for throwing an illegal rave, she asks her aunt Judy for bail money. Judy then finds Mary a job at her library so that Mary can repay her. Initially, Mary finds the job as a clerk boring and stifling, and prefers to get to know a street food vendor whom she likes. However, Mary must refocus her life once she loses her job and apartment.
Party Girl

Three salesmen working for a firm that makes industrial lubricants are waiting in the company's "hospitality suite" at a manufacturers' convention for a "big kahuna" named Dick Fuller to show up, in hopes they can persuade him to place an order that could salvage the company's flagging sales.
The Big Kahuna

Percy, upon being released from prison, goes to the small town of Gillead, to find a place where she can start over again. She is taken in by Hannah, to help out at her place, the Spitfire Grill. Percy brings change to the small town, stirring resentment and fear in some, and growth in others.
The Spitfire Grill

Broadway legend Elaine Stritch remains in the spotlight at eighty-seven years old. Join the uncompromising Tony and Emmy Award-winner both on and off stage in this revealing documentary. With interviews from Tina Fey, Nathan Lane, Hal Prince and others, ELAINE STRITCH: SHOOT ME blends rare archival footage and intimate cinema vérité to reach beyond Stritch’s brassy exterior, revealing a multi-dimensional portrait of a complex woman and an inspiring artist.
Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me

An impressionistic portrait of the iconic actor Harry Dean Stanton comprised of intimate moments, film clips from some of his 250 films and his renditions of American folk songs.
Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction

A reclusive aging widower struggling with tax problems has a complete change in his views of life as he has a chance encounter with a young woman who moves in with him briefly.
The Last Good Time

The Lazarus Effect is a 2010 documentary film about the positive impact of free antiretroviral drug therapy on HIV/AIDS patients in Africa. It was directed by Lance Bangs, and executive produced by Spike Jonze, after an organizer from AIDS awareness group (RED) suggested the project to them.
The Lazarus Effect

"I'm not black, I'm not white, not foreign, just different in the mind. Different brains, that's all," explains 15-year-old Billy in Jennifer Venditti's provocative coming of age film. Following Billy as he bicycles through the quiet streets of small town Maine, we watch him traverse the frustrating gap between imagination and reality, grappling with isolation and first-time young love. By turns exhilarating and disturbing, we see the world from the intimate view of an expressive and seemingly fearless outsider.
Billy the Kid

LOVE ETC. is a witty, poignant and humorous exploration about the universal stages of love, depicted through five real stories over the course of one year in New York City. Young, old, gay, straight – everyone has experienced love – and the joy and frustration that come with it. From teen romance to a decades-long marriage; newlyweds to a recent divorcee, and even a bachelor so frustrated in his search that he chooses to have children without a partner, LOVE ETC. documents the intimate journeys of engaging characters aged 18-89 who reflect the city’s diversity, and takes an honest look at life's most challenging pursuit.