
Shôzô Ichiyama
Production
Biography
Shozo Ichiyama (born 1963), also known as Shozo Ichikawa, is a Japanese film producer. He has worked on films by directors such as Hou Hsiao-hsien and Jia Zhangke. Born in 1963 in Shinnanyo City, Yamaguchi Prefecture (now Shunan City). After graduating from Yamaguchi Prefectural Tokuyama High School, he graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tokyo. In 1987, he joined Shochiku. In 1998, he left Shochiku to join T-Mark. In 2000, he launched Tokyo FILMeX. In 2008, he produced Song of Sichuan, directed by Jia Zhangke. He has been the programming director of the Tokyo International Film Festival since April 2021. From 2024, he will be a professor in the Film Production Department at the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts. In 2019, he received the 37th Kawakita Award. Description above from the Wikipedia article Shozo Ichiyama, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For

Four people in different provinces are driven to violent ends: An angry miner is enraged by corruption in his village. A migrant discovers the possibilities of owning a firearm. A receptionist is pushed beyond her limits by an abusive client. A young factory worker goes from one job to the next.
A Touch of Sin

A detective breaks all rules of ethical conduct while investigating a colleague’s involvement in drug pushing and Yakuza activities.
Violent Cop

Set in China's underworld, this tale of love and betrayal follows a dancer who fired a gun to protect her mobster boyfriend during a fight. On release from prison 5 years later, she sets out to find him.
Ash Is Purest White

Two disaffected, unemployed Chinese youth drift through life on the streets of their industrial town, their paths crossing with that of a local young singer and dancer working for a liquor company as a spokesmodel.
Unknown Pleasures

Years after her boyfriend left her for the big city and promised to bring her there after he’s settled down, a Chinese woman sets out on a journey to be reunited with him.
Caught by the Tides

At the end of the 19th century, Shanghai is divided into several foreign concessions. In the British concession, a number of luxurious “flower houses” are reserved for the male elite of the city. Since Chinese dignitaries are not allowed to frequent brothels, these establishments are the only ones that these men can visit. They form a self-contained world, with its own rites, traditions and even its own language. The men don’t only visit the houses to frequent the courtesans but also to dine, smoke opium, play mahjong and relax. The women working there are known as the “flowers of Shanghai”.
Flowers of Shanghai

The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025.
Mountains May Depart

Rosuke, a monk, has gone missing. His lover, Nonoka, takes the assassin Shinno to a religious facility in search of Rosuke. There, they meet a sorcerer called Ajari. Meanwhile, Rosuke is on a spaceship heading to the unknown planet named Kelman. There, he meets a strange old man. And then...a battle...
Transcending Dimensions

Long is a Taiwanese killer known for his sword skills. After Long fails a Tokyo mission, he moves to a small town where no one knows about him.
Mr. Long

Toichi is a boatman who ferries the villagers to a town on the other side of the river. Besides rowing a boat for the villagers all day long, he barely communicates with anyone except Genzo, a young neighbour. Upstream, a large bridge is being constructed. Everyone is excited, but Toichi has mixed feelings about it. One day, Toichi meets a mysterious girl. Having no family and no place to go, Toichi lets her stay with him, but this encounter starts to bring about changes to Toichi's life.
They Say Nothing Stays the Same

China’s rapid changes from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, as seen through the lives of four performers in a theater troupe.
Platform

As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.
24 City

Sukezo, a former manga comic artist, takes up the art rock business by setting up a shop in a shed by the river. He tries hard to be successful, but business does not go well and the family becomes progressively poorer.
Nowhere Man

Things are hectic in heaven. Dozens of scribes sit before a long scroll incessantly scribbling away. They are composing the biographies of earth-dwellers. What is invented by the men in heaven is lived out below. And their employer, God, is increasingly vehement in demanding avant-garde ideas. Take, for example, the beautiful Yuri, a girl who dies in a car crash. Some of the heavenly scribes find this very dull and send former gangster Chas, who has become a heavenly tea-boy, back down to earth with instructions to save Yuri no matter what. And so Chas ends up in Okinawa, gets to know the earth-dwellers, interferes in their fates, becomes celebrated as 'Mr Angel' and is hounded by brutal enemies. His falling in love with Yuri is of course a foregone conclusion. But no one could anticipate what happens next. Not even God himself
Chasuke's Journey

With Taiwan remaining in the grip of martial law in 1982, a group of filmmakers from that country set out to establish a cultural identity through cinema and to share it with the world. This engaging documentary looks at the movement's legacy.
Flowers of Taipei: Taiwan New Cinema

At Beijing World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the city’s suburbs, a security guard betrays his dancer girlfriend by pursuing another woman.
The World

A Japanese man and his Chinese-American wife struggle with work, parenting, and caregiving in NYC. Their strained life spirals when their son is kidnapped, leading to murder. Unspoken truths and secrets surface, deepening their rift. Can they rebuild their shattered vision of a "happy family"?
Dear Stranger

A stubborn professor who becomes consumed by desire when he forms a bond with his best friend’s daughter who is tasked with taking care of him.
Diary of a Mad Old Man

Sidonie Perceval, an established French writer, is mourning her deceased husband. Invited to Japan for the reedition of her first book, she is welcomed by her local editor who takes her to Kyoto, the city of shrines and temples. As they travel together through the Japanese spring blossoms, she slowly opens up to him. But the ghost of her husband follows Sidonie: she will have to finally let go of the past to let herself love again.
Sidonie in Japan

Divorced salaryman Yoji has just buried his mother in Tokyo. With few meaningful relationships left, he comes to grips with the realization that he has nothing to live for. A chance encounter with Minerva, a Filipina migrant worker who appears to sense his sadness, urges him to see his situation in a new way. A former nightclub entertainer, Minerva now works as a caregiver to provide for her only child in the Philippines. When Yoji discovers the decomposing corpse of his neighbor, an old man whose name he does not know, the death is ruled a kodokushi, or the lonely death. Unwilling to meet the same fate, Yoji throws caution to the wind to follow Minerva to Manila, the capital city of the Philippines.