Disability presents different challenges for everyone but wheelchair users share a common dilemma: Their mode of locomotion stands out, while they often struggle with social isolation. That was my takeaway from "The Lost Coin," a 2016 short by Mizuko Yamaoka, a filmmaker who has ...
Almost everyone who comes to Tokyo via Narita International Airport notices the lush green fields surrounding the runways and terminal buildings. It's a nice sight after sitting on an airplane for so long. Some new arrivals get confused, however. "This can't be Tokyo," I once ...
Director Hidetaka Inazuka, known for his documentary on the double atomic-bomb survivor, has completed a new film on three Japanese children fighting a very rare and little-known disease that has left them mostly immobile since birth. The film, titled "Kiseki no Kodomotachi" ("Miracle Children"), features ...
A documentary about a late Japanese wartime fighter pilot who tells people about the miseries of war is finding audiences in a theater in Nagano. The film depicts the story of Kaname Harada, who in his late years started to talk about his experiences from ...
The word "nisshiki" (Japanese style) can often be seen on storefront signs in Taiwan to indicate chic, high-end products. It's a little similar to what we in Japan associate with luxury items from France, though "nisshiki" is a holdover from the days when Taiwan ...
Some 45 years after their first appearance on a San Francisco stage, The Residents remain a band that practically defines the term "cult," and their freak-show, cartoon-surrealist approach continues to attract a healthy fan base (as evidenced by some sold-out shows at Tokyo's Blue ...
Yoshiki Hayashi hardly sleeps. The drummer, pianist, songwriter and leader of rock band X Japan has been in and out of the country constantly these past few months, promoting his band's new documentary film, "We Are X." At the same time he has been ...
During one scene in Bon Ishikawa's upcoming documentary "Sekai de Ichiban Utsukushii Mura" ("The Most Beautiful Village in the World"), the photographer-turned-filmmaker uses a drone to capture one of Asia's oldest traditions: the collecting of honey from caves in the steep cliffs of the ...
George Best's prodigious rise to soccer superstardom and plunge into alcoholic self-destruction is laid bare in a new documentary film that focuses on the character behind the tragic tale. "George Best: All By Himself," which has its world premiere at the London Film Festival on ...
Before the Syrian refugee crisis spilled across Europe, first-time feature filmmakers Ellen Martinez and Steph Ching were in Jordan's Zaatari Refugee Camp with their cameras. There at the camp where more than 80,000 live, Martinez and Ching found a more intimate portrait of the people ...
The Sex Pistols played their final gig at San Francisco's Winterland in January 1978. About a year later, Sid Vicious died from an overdose, and so did punk rock — according to the music magazines. The Pistols' chaotic tour of America, however, had dropped ...
University student Shiori Suzuki visited Myanmar in 2013 as a tourist. What she did not notice there was the plight of the Muslim minority Rohingya — and only learned about them and their situation from a newspaper article upon her return. "What did I see ...
