Movies: Aiko Masubuchi

A near-future city in Japan awaits destruction as it's rocked by a series of foreshocks that predict a larger, more disastrous quake on the horizon. With the anxiety looming over them, a group of teenage best friends and musicians get into typical te...

Near-future Tokyo. Kou, through the help of his high school best friend, finds a surprising way to express his mounting frustration at the insidious forces of commercialism that are forcing out the neighbors he cares most about. Initially inspired by...

"Ars longa, vita brevis" – art is long, life is short. This is one of Japanese music icon Ryuichi Sakamoto's favorite quotes, and the message that he leaves for viewers at the end of his final concert film, shot before he succumbed to cancer in March...

In the Meiji Period, in the 19th century Japan, transitioning towards modernization, BLACK OX explores the relationship between man and ox, inspired by the “Ten Ox-Herding Pictures” a series of short poems and illustrations from Zen Buddhism traditio...

On an unseasonably hot day in November, Hiro, a Japanese immigrant in New York City, decides to butcher a live chicken for dinner. While showing his visiting cousin Kei around, the pair encounter a medical emergency on the street. After they mishandl...

Somewhere in Japan, two men live in a new age house, through the windows of which the reflections and ripples of the rain shimmer in black and white. One of them explains to a journalist that the house’s design allows them to gather rainwater and use...

On April 7, 2020, the first state of emergency was declared in Japan. People disappeared from the streets and movie theaters and museums closed their doors. Whatever happens in the world around us, the existence of you and I remain unchanged. As long...

Bodega Bay's final performance: Mercury Lounge, June 3rd, 2016, NYC Filmed in one take on hi8 (with a brief tape glitch cutting "Second Row Center" short)...

In a country ruled by the Liberal Democratic Party, running on austerity and neoliberal ambitions, for most of its postwar years, gender and economic inequalities have become increasingly acute in Japan. Takashi Nishihara, a filmmaker who has been fo...