Memories Showers Seas (2025)

Jeju Prayer

Focusing on Mrs. Kang Sang-hee’s life, she lost her husband in the Jeju Uprising (March 3rd, 1948). The film views the dark-side of Jeju Island, a huge grave, which is completely opposite of the other side of the island, the famous tourist attraction. It says that the tragedy has been going on about the recent Gang-jeong village situation.

Soup and Ideology

Confronting half of her mother’s life—her mother who had survived the Jeju April 3 Incident—the director tries to scoop out disappearing memories. A tale of family, which carries on from Dear Pyongyang, carving out the cruelty of history, and questioning the precarious existence of the nation-state.

Arirang Rhapsody

The protagonists of the film are the Zainichi Korean women living in Kawasaki. They were tossed about by the war, and after many trips to and fro across the sea in search of a place to live, they finally arrived in Kawasaki, where they have lived modestly and vigorously.

Horoomon

One woman. One racist lie. One lawsuit that shook Japan. Korean Japanese entrepreneur Shin Sugok takes on major media in this electro-shock legal thriller about refusing to be silenced.

I Am From Chosun

After 15 years of knowing Chosun people in Japan I met on Mt. Geumgang in 2002, I face the history of colonization and division that I had not known before. They’ve been to North Korea many times, but never to South Korea. They tell us why they want to live as Chosun people despite the discrimination in Japanese society. 

Dear Pyongyang

Dear Pyongyang is a documentary film by Zainichi Korean director Yang Yong-hi (Korean: 양영희, Hanja: 梁英姬) about her own family. It was shot in Osaka Japan (Yang's hometown) and Pyongyang, North Korea, In the 1970s, Yang's father, an ardent communist and leader of the pro-North movement in Japan, sent his three sons from Japan to North Korea under a repatriation campaign sponsored by ethnic activist organisation and de facto North Korean embassy Chongryon; as the only daughter, Yang herself remained in Japan. However, as the economic situation in the North deteriorated, the brothers became increasingly dependent for survival on the care packages sent by their parents. The film shows Yang's visits to her brothers in Pyongyang, as well as conversations with her father about his ideological faith and his regrets over breaking up his family.

Voices

In the turmoil of the Jeju 4.3 incident, Jeju Island witnessed the loss of an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 lives, with women constituting a significant yet often unrecognized proportion of the victims. This documentary illuminates the once-shrouded experiences of these women, led by a dedicated Jeju 4.3 researcher.

Our School

This documentary is about the 3rd and 4th generation Korean residents of Japan who are students of Chosen elementary, middle, and high school in Hokkaido. It follows the students through one year of the eventual 11 years` national education. Rather than focusing on special occasions or issues, it reveals what it is like to live in Japan as Korean-Japanese by describing their everyday lives.

Strangers on the Field

In April 2013, unfamiliar faces appear at the Jamsil Baseball Stadium during the opening matches between Doosan and SK. The nervous middle-aged men throwing and batting the first ball are, in fact, Korean-Japanese former team members that played on that same spot in the 1982 finals of the Bong-hwang-dae-ki games.

April Tragedy

The oral writer of the April 3 Uprising and a Rwandan who came to Korea to study face each other, have a conversation, and then go on a trip hand in hand. The two people, from different generations, nationalities, and occupations, have something in common: they are the daughters of massacre survivors.

The Voices of the Silenced

Director Park Soo-nam, a second-generation Korean resident in Japan who is losing his eyesight, decides to digitally restore 16mm film she shot a long time ago, relying on her daughter Park Ma-eui's eyesight. The blood, tears, and numerous corpses of Koreans living in Japan are clearly engraved in the film filmed over 50 years.

Until the Stones Speak

There are five grandmothers, four of whom went to Jeonju Prison due to the Jeju 4.3. All of them were young people around the age of 20 at the time of the incident in 1948. The outline of the incident is formed when hearing the experiences of those who were sent to prison without trial particularly as women. The audience feels indescribable emotions by the fact that they have lived on despite what they had gone through, things that are just too much for a human being to bear.

Haewon

According to a survey by the U.S. military government in 1946, 78% of the South Korean people wanted socialism and only 14% capitalism. By appointing the pro-Japanese collaborators and the rightists, Rhee Syngman, who had not received the people's support, massacred those groups and civilians that were political stumbling blocks. In dealing with the Jeju 4.3 uprising in 1947 and the Yeosun incident in 1948 and The Korean War having broken out, massive civilian massacre became regularized.

The Red Filter is Withdrawn.

If you look into the entrance of one of the huge caves on the Korean island of Jeju, it looks like a camera lens. If you walk into the cave, it looks like a screen, a rectangle showing clouds and white light, just like a film. Director Kim Minjung delves into the bloody history of Jeju, where tens of thousands were killed in a massacre in 1948. The camera follows the traces in the landscape, sometimes transformed by a strident, distance-creating red light, accompanied by a commentary by avant-garde filmmaker Hollis Frampton. Film as a means to address history and its taboos.

Shiso

A Japanese herb called 'shiso' looks like a perilla leaf but has a unique fragrance. It's like how I have a Korean name and nationality but still feel a sense of alienation in Korean society. The death of my grandmother, a first-generation Zainichi, raises a question for me: Does death also mark the end of the life of an outsider? In the end, where do we return to?

The Hanbok on the Court

Plot unavailable

Fighter in the Wind

An account of karate competitor Choi Yeung-Eui who went to Japan after World War II to become a fighter pilot but found a very different path instead. He changed his name to Masutatsu Oyama and went across the country, defeating martial artists one after another. This film concentrates on the period when he is still young, and developing his famous karate style, Kyokushin.

Blood and Bones

In 1923, teenager Kim Shun-Pei moves from Cheju Island, in South Korea, to Osaka, in Japan. Along the years, he becomes a cruel, greedy and violent man and builds a factory of kamaboko, processed seafood products, in his poor Korean-Japanese community exploiting his employees.

Yakiniku Dragon

Set in the 1970's in the Kansai region of Japan.. Yong-Gil is Korean, but he moved to Japan and settled down. He runs a small restaurant named Yakiniku Dragon. He is married and has three daughters: oldest daughter Jung-Hwa, middle daughter Yi-Hwa and youngest daughter Mi-Hwa. Oldest daughter Jung-Hwa is dating Tetsuo, but they break up. Middle daughter Yi-Hwa loves Tetsuo and marries him, but Tetsuo still loves her older sister and they divorce. Youngest daughter Mi-Hwa wants to become a singer, but she is in love with a married man.

Worst by Chance

Hidenori is a Japanese-Korean man with no sense of belonging, destination or education. He drifts around and meanders through life until a death reminds him of his heritage and so begins a journey to South Korea.

Chong

A spirited and brave fiction debut by Lee Sang-il, a Korean-Japanese filmmaker, that explores the taboo subject of the relations between Korean immigrants and Japanese in Japan.

GO

Sugihara, a Japanese-born, third-generation Korean teenager struggles to find a place in a society that will not accept him.

The Chosen: Forbidden Cave

Jin-Myung is a psychiatrist and exorcist. With his assistant, Ji-Kwang, they attempt an exorcism on Geum-Joo. She suffers from a bizarre phenomenon. They then face a powerful existence within Geum-Joo. Extreme horror arises out of her.

Death by Hanging

A Korean man is sentenced to death in Japan but somehow survives his execution, sending the authorities into a panic about what to do next.

Jiseul

The populace of a South Korean island rebels against police brutality. The protesters are labeled as communists, and the army is dispatched.

All Under the Moon

A Korean taxi-driver interacts both humorously and tragically with his customers and employers in '90s Tokyo.

Pacchigi!

Romeo, A.K.A. Kosuke Matsuyama, is a second-year high school student. A nice, normal, nonviolent type, he suddenly finds himself in the middle of a rampaging crowd of Korean boys, outraged by insults perpetrated by several of his idiotic class-mates on two Korean girls. He makes a narrow escape, but soon after, he and his best bud Yoshio are sent by their home-room teacher to invite the Korean students to a friendly soccer game as a way of restoring the peace.

Empire of Kids

Following a stint in reform school, Ryu (Shinsuke Shimada) returns to his home, the Minami area of Osaka, accompanied by his new friend Ko (Takeshi Masu). He's greeted by his friends, Chabo (Ryusuke Matsumoto) and Ken (Bang-ho Cho). They seek to forge their own path through a multitude of rival gangs in Kita and Minami, including the Hokushin Alliance, backed by the yakuza, the Hope Association, and various other minor factions, including Zainichi Korean groups. What follows is a wild, fast-paced story of violence, revenge, betrayal, and discrimination, that never loses its sense of humor.

Deliver Us from Evil

A retired contract killer goes on a bloody rampage when a young girl finds herself at the mercy of gangland human traffickers and only one man can come to her rescue, with an arsenal of weapons and years of experience in the art of killing.

Rikidozan: A Hero Extraordinaire

Story of Rikidozan, a sumo wrestler who can only achieve limited success in Japan because he's half Korean. But when Rikidozan goes to the United States and discovers professional wrestling, he becomes a hero back home.

Pacchigi! Love & Peace

In 1974, during the height of the recession, a Japanese Korean family relocates to Tokyo to raise money and seek better treatment for their ill son.

Sans Soleil

A woman narrates the thoughts of a world traveler, meditations on time and memory expressed in words and images from places as far-flung as Japan, Guinea-Bissau, Iceland, and San Francisco.

Daybreak Express

Set to a classic Duke Ellington recording "Daybreak Express", this is a five-minute short of the soon-to-be-demolished Third Avenue elevated subway station in New York City.

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him

What would your family reminiscences about dad sound like if he had been an early supporter of Hitler’s, a leader of the notorious SA and the Third Reich’s minister in charge of Slovakia, including its Final Solution? Executed as a war criminal in 1947, Hanns Ludin left behind a grieving widow and six young children, the youngest of whom became a filmmaker. It's a fascinating, maddening, sometimes even humorous look at what the director calls "a typical German story." (Film Forum)

The Bridge

The Bridge is a controversial documentary that shows people jumping to their death from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco - the world's most popular suicide destination. Interviews with the victims' loved ones describe their lives and mental health.

March of the Penguins

Every year, thousands of Antarctica's emperor penguins make an astonishing journey to breed their young. They walk, marching day and night in single file 70 miles into the darkest, driest and coldest continent on Earth. This amazing, true-life tale is touched with humour and alive with thrills. Breathtaking photography captures the transcendent beauty and staggering drama of devoted parent penguins who, in the fierce polar winter, take turns guarding their egg and trekking to the ocean in search of food. Predators hunt them, storms lash them. But the safety of their adorable chicks makes it all worthwhile. So follow the leader... to adventure!!

Mount Angel Pilgrim

Short documentary following poet and pilgrim, Sherman, on pilgrimage from his apartment in Salem to monasteries in Mount Angel, Oregon.

Festival

Provincial students of theater schools come to Moscow for a progressive art festival. This is the story of a clash between the capital and the province, young talents and stars, the "old" school and the "new"; a story that is looped - because it is repeated with each generation.

Yes, Death

Short movie shows us a life in the Moscow Headquarter of the National Bolshevik Party and contains several interviews with a party members.

Above 592 Metres

On the slopes of the Navarrese Pyrenees, the construction of the Itoiz dam in the 1990s flooded seven villages and three nature reserves. A strip of bare land, 592 metres above sea level, today marks a dividing line within the landscape of the valley. Below that level, the water; above it, life goes on.

Fatma of the Forest

Reflects life, longings and a major “fear” in the subconscious of a 12-years old “woodcutter” girl living under very hard conditions in the forest of Toros Mountains at an altitude of approximately 2000 m. The documentary, aiming to symbolize a little-known but common practice of child labour, accomplishes a dramatic portrayal of laborers who work for Ministery of Forestry totally deprived of social security.

Busby

The story of Manchester United legend Sir Matt Busby.

Re-Births

A documentary film depicting five intimate portraits of migrants who fled their country of origin to seek refuge in France and find a space of freedom where they can fully experience their sexuality and their sexual identity: Giovanna, woman transgender of Colombian origin, Roman, Russian transgender man, Cate, Ugandan lesbian mother, Yi Chen, young Chinese gay man…

Maija Isola, Master of Colour and Form

A film about Maija Isola, the designer of Finland’s most beloved fabrics. Her bold designs, which include classics like Unikko, Kivet, Kaivo and Melooni, were essential in creating Marimekko’s lifestyle universe. The film shows the secrets to the success of Maija Isola’s fabrics, the values at the heart of Isola’s globetrotter lifestyle, and the legacy she left us. The film is narrated by Maija Isola, as well as her daughter Kristina Isola. It takes us close to Maija as a person, artist, thinker and visionary through her letters. We also hear Armi Ratia’s thoughts on Isola both as an employee and as a friend.

Symphony of Survival

Amid the flames of the most violent wildfire to ever hit the Pantanal, in Brazil, documentarian Michel Coeli witnesses the animals’ struggle for survival as they search for water and food. Firefighters and volunteers work to minimize the impacts of the environmental disaster, battling both the fire and the State’s bureaucratic hurdles.

Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band

Undeniably one of the most important and influential gay music acts in the last twenty years, Pansy Division pioneered the "queercore" genre long before other gay musicians had the confidence to come out of the closet, and without major record label support or mainstream radio airplay. Using original and archive footage and covering over fifteen years as a group, Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band is a fast-paced, intimate and humorous account of one of rock's most fearless acts. From their first days in San Francisco's underground music scene to a full-fledged stadium tour with Green Day and beyond, founding members Jon Ginoli and Chris Freeman overcome increasingly difficult line-up changes, prejudice and near-poverty to keep the band together and create music that has truly made a difference.

Warriors of the Discotheque

The place is the notorious Starck Club (so called because it was the first major project designed by Philippe Starck in the US.) The Starck Club opened in Dallas in 1984 and not long after hosted the 1984 national Republican Convention. Ironically, it was actually legal to buy MDMA aka ecstasy there, people would put it on their credit cards. The DEA stepped in and made it a category 1 drug on July 1, 1985... In a time when ecstasy was legal & guyliner was cool.

Ghost Hunting

A set-up for an experiment in an empty room. Former inmates reconstruct an Israeli secret service interrogation centre. These Palestinian men use role play to come to terms with their memories and the humiliation they have experienced.

In the Intense Now

A personal essay which analyses and compares images of the political upheavals of the 1960s. From the military coup in Brazil to China's Cultural Revolution, from the student uprisings in Paris to the end of the Prague Spring.