HOLDOUT is based off the true story of a Japanese WWII Lieutenant who got left behind on an island in South East Asia after the war. He never got the memo that the war ended so he kept on fighting and only surrendered in the 1970s, nearly 30 years after the war ended.

HOLDOUT

Sayoko (70), who suffers from dementia, thinks her son Makoto (35) is a stranger and does not open up to him, waiting for the young Makoto in her memory to return. One night, the ghost of a girl who lost her life due to misfortune appears and tries to possess Sayoko, but Sayoko, who does not care about ghosts, takes no notice of her. Will Sayoko be possessed by the girl, or will she be able to realize that Makoto is her son? And so the night goes on.

Chained / チェインド

Since the Great Tohoku (East Japan) Earthquake deprived Sonomi of her best friend Kyoko, she has lived without accepting the friend’s death.  One day, a time capsule is found; It contains letters they wrote to each other to be read in the future.  With the discovery, never-fading beautiful memories come back. At the same time, an irreparable mistake that Sonomi cannot regret enough comes back as well.  Agonizing over the past, she learns about the Drifting Post, a mailbox that receives letters containing undelivered messages and pent-up feelings to those deceased in the earthquake. To convey her feelings to Kyoko and move on from the painful past, Sonomi makes up her mind to deliver her letter and she sets out for the Drifting Post.

The Drifting Post

An old Japanese mother, Haruko comes to Tokyo from Osaka to see her 30 years old son, Shuji.Her purpose of the visit is setting up a matchmaking for him because he is still a single man.However, Shuji already uses a matching app to find his partner.On the other hand, Haruko cannot trust the app, so she tries to convince him quit using it.There is a huge gap occurs in between the parent and child.

MaTch

Last Hawaiian Sugar is a short drama set on the final remaining sugar cane plantation camp on Maui. NUA, twelve years-old, Samoan, identifies with the world through her intensely spiritual connection she has with the land. She is the product of this immigrant camp that ‘Big Sugar’ brought here to work these fields. On the very day Nua learns the mill is closing she struggles to tell her mother about the abuse she suffers. When her mother isn’t able to hear her cries for help Nua resolves to sabotage the final sugarcane burn as she prepares to say goodbye to the only home she’s ever known. Nua’s story is a metaphor for what’s happened to the land due to industrialized farming, a rare look into the final days of commercial sugar production in Hawai’i and the complicated relationship the islands have with it. Last Hawaiian Sugar is a contemporary story reckoning a deep Hawaiian history. HC&amp;S produced its final harvest in 2016. This mill, on Maui, was permanently closed soon after and the last employees of the Hawaiian Commercial &amp; Sugar Co. were laid off.&nbsp;

Last Hawaiian Sugar

In near future, ALI, a Muslim space pilot, is working alone on a space station during the Christmas season, because all other crew is back to the Earth for holidays. One day, TAKAKO, a Japanese girl lives in the city on the Moon, stows away in an unmanned cargo ship and gets onboard the space station. Although she wants to go to the Earth to meet her father, she took the wrong cargo ship.

Orbital Christmas

Living in the Story documents the life and work of distinguished photographic artist Patrick Ryoichi Nagatani, one of the most innovative photographic artists of our era. In the late 1970s, he pioneered the Contemporary Constructed Photographic Movement in Los Angeles, developing a new visual vocabulary by constructing tableau photographs from sets, sculptures, models, and paintings. The film portrays an artist deeply concerned and well informed about world events who uses imagery, storytelling and narrative fiction to raise awareness about modern anxieties including immigration/internment and nuclear issues. These issues are particularly relevant today, in light of escalating racial tensions, threats of nuclear war, toxic pollution and a growing refugee population worldwide. Despite the serious content of his subject matter, his innovative images are compelling and entertaining. An engaging raconteur and teacher, Nagatani talks in the film about his projects, his unorthodox photographic techniques, and his subtle weaving together of fiction and fact. Scott Nagatani’s hauntingly beautiful music score provides the film’s soundtrack.&nbsp;

Living in the Story

Do you remember yesterday’s sky?&nbsp;The sky always extends beyond your upward gaze. I love today’s sky where clouds scatter leisurely.&nbsp;The poet Shuntaro Tanikawa wrote a new poem entitled “I Love Today’s Sky”. Based on this poem describing a bright future, the Tearful Production Committee, which had produced the short films “The First Feeling in My Life” and “Obento”, created a third short film entirely on location in Ashiya, a city near Kobe. We presented visual images in an attempt to wrap our overflowing joyous hearts in a perfectly clear sky with the magic finesse of exquisite light. Thinking highly of the beautiful, natural effect of light, we filmed scenes with no artificial light.&nbsp;Yui Narumi born in Nishinomiya, a city near Ashiya, played the leading role in this film. She read a Tanikawa poem in a very natural, detached, non-performing art-like sort of voice. Her facial expression, like the point where subject and object meet, gives this film a sense of depth.&nbsp;A small number of staff produced this high-quality short film by presenting all of us with Shuntaro Tanikawa’s message to the future.

I Love Today’s Sky / 今日の空は大好き

The young office worker Saki is looking forward to the birthday date with her boyfriend, with whom she has been for three Years together. However, because of his Work, she is all the more surprised, as he suddenly the next day with a marriage proposal arrives. However, Saki's father is anything but Enthusiastic and responsive to their wedding plans. In desperation, she finds herself in the café her father's cassette with his favorite music, through which they both begin to listen together, to understand his feelings.

CASSETTE TAPE / カセットテープ

In the future city of Submittan, people over 80 years old are forced into 'retirement' to a remote mountain area, as the city deals with increased population. The burden falls on the shoulder of an immigrant artist, who is tasked to design a propaganda poster to convince citizens of this new registration.

SUBMITTAN

Elementary school student Taro Ando is playing with his friends without wearing a mask, even though he learned about Covid-19 at school. At night, he coughs in front of his grandmother, and she gets sick. The next day, the friends who were playing with Taro tested positive for coronavirus, and school is suddenly cancelled. And when Taro got home, his grandmother was taken away by people from the local health department wearing the protective gear. “Grandma might have got covid from me” Taro starts feeling scared.

I'm less than zero / ぼくはぜろにみたない

This documentary is about the relatively unknown "Made in Japan" story. There is culture, community, and love that the first generation of Japanese immigrants (issei) passed on to the next generations in Little Tokyo. Their legacy and history are unknown to even Japanese natives so there is much to learn. This documentary film is about Kuniharu Yoshida's experiences throughout his 3-month artist residency project. The film captures the importance of carrying forward the legacy of Little Tokyo to the next generation as it remains one of three historic Japan Towns in the United States.

First Street North

In Japan, parents’ days are held several times a year for parents to observe classes at school.In this experimental and moving short film, the exact same conversation about parents’ day is repeated in five different households.For Noriko Sakaguchi, her job as an English teacher at a junior high school is her life. She always arrives at work early in the morning. She is bad at turning down work, and often works late. She lives a stable life, despite the loneliness of being single.There are a variety of students in her class.Hikaru, whose parents both work, is a model student.Akina is a cheerful girl despite losing her mother.Kazuma is well-off but unmotivated.Yukari takes on the household chores because her mother is sloppy.Ryota is frightened of his violent father.Tomorrow is parents’ day.The same conversation unfolds in each household, but each family is different...

Parents' Day 　/ あした、授業参観いくから。

The "me" in the title, I am a high school music club member. My part is the contrabass. Like the deep billow of my instrument, the depression peculiar to adolescence swells within me low and thick, coiling around my body each and every day. The only light is you, a member of the same music club. Your part is the mandolin. As you lead the quintet with your soaring timbre, your presence sublimates the swelling within my adolescent heart. I formed my overflowing passion into printed words and imprisoned them on four loose-leaf pages. I folded the tone of my love in four before handing them to you, you to whom I’d never done more than say hello. I felt confident; the smile on your face was reason enough for me to feel this way. Two weeks later and still no response. The deep and constant swell within my heart rose and fell…; it played a dissonant melody within my mind. Unable to stand it any longer I waited for you at the entrance to the school. All I wanted was your answer. However, you did not reply; you did not offer even a single word. You looked at my face - your expression but a frown - and left. … With that, the melody cut off. The next thing I knew, I was standing on the edge of the school’s rooftop, throwing my 69-kilogram body into the air. Dismal before love, dismal before unrequited love, dismal before jumping. And now… 高校の音楽部に所属する「俺」。パートは「コントラバス」。低くうねるコンバスのように、思春期独特の鬱屈が、低く太く、体幹にまとわりつくようにうねる毎日を送っていた。 唯一の光は同じ音楽部に所属する「あなた」。パートは「マンドリン」。高い音色で五重奏をリードするように、その存在は俺の心の低いうねりを青春へと昇華させる。「俺」は溢れ出る恋心を、活字に変え、四枚のルーズリーフに閉じ込めた。 挨拶以外したことがない「あなた」に、「俺」は恋の音色を四つ折りにして手渡した。手応えはあった。受け取るときの笑顔がその根拠だ。しかし、二週間が経っても、「あなた」からの返事はない。低く一定だったうねりが、時に高鳴り、時に濁り…、「俺」の心の中で不協和音を奏で始めていた。 いてもたってもいられなくなった「俺」は、昇降口で「あなた」を待ち伏せた。もちろん返事を聞くためだ。しかし、「あなた」は返事どころか、言葉さえ発しなかった。 俺の顔を見て、表情を曇らせて、去った。…音が途切れた。 気づいた時には「俺」は、校舎・屋上の縁に立ち、６９キログラムの体を宙に投げ出していた。鬱屈のち恋、鬱屈のち失恋。鬱屈のち飛び降り。飛び降りのち…。 筆者の思春期の実体験を短歌のみで綴った歌集を映像化した作品。

The most important me in the world / 世界で一番すばらしい俺

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19th anniversary Japan Film Festival Los Angeles 2024 Sep. 1-15 Online Screenings at JFFLA.org About 40 films screening this year Theater and online. Theater screening at Hang on Dream Theatre and JAPAN HOUSE in Hollywood on September 14 and 15. 

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