Directed by Eric Khoo • Animation • 2014 • 98 minutes
TATSUMI celebrates the life and work of Japanese comics artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi-a manga pioneer who elevated the genre to a new level of creative expression and adult realism. A comics-crazed teenager, Tatsumi began to get published and was able to support his poor family in postwar occupied Japan. He finds even greater inspiration after meeting his idol, the famous Disney-esque animator Osamu Tezuka. But despite his success, Tatsumi became dissatisfied with making whimsical children's comics. In the late 1950s, Tatsumi coined the term gekiga (dramatic pictures) and redefined the manga landscape with an alternative genre for adults. Realistic and disquieting, his work began to grapple with the darker aspects of life in his rapidly changing country-with stories that are perverse, shocking and darkly comic. A tribute to an artist who made comics cinematic, filmmaker Eric Khoo's (BE WITH ME) inventive animated drama brings Tatsumi's memoir A Drifting Life and five of his classic stories to life.
'CRITICS PICK! It's potent stuff, delving into pornography, incest, murder and mutilation in the company of alienated men and unhappy, sometimes cruel women.' - Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times
Directed by Kazuhiro Soda • Documentary • With Kôji Fukada, Kanji Furutachi, Oriza Hirata • 2012 • 172 minutes
What is the essence of theatre?
Theatre 1 is a feature length documentary which closely depicts the world of Oriza Hirata, Japan’s leading playwright and director, and his theatrical ...
Directed by Kazuhiro Soda • Documentary • With Kanji Furutachi, Koichiro Genba, Oriza Hirata • 2012 • 170 minutes
Can the theatre arts survive in the 21st century?
If Theatre 1 is about the world of Hirata, Theatre 2 is a feature documentary, which depicts the relationship between Hirata and th...
Directed by Shohei Imamura • Documentary • 1971 • 45 minutes
In Malaysia, Imamura follows one false lead after another as he tries to locate unreturned Japanese who had given up the culture of their birth to integrate with Malaysian society. These wrong turns take the filmmaker on a tour through...
