Summary: Affluent architects Ryota and his wife Midori face a terrible dilemma when they learn that their six-year-old son, Keita, was accidentally switched at birth and is not their biological child. In the wake of this revelation, Ryota's sense of fatherhood is shaken to the core as he witnesses both his wife's enduring devotion to Keita and his own conflicting feelings of nature versus nurture. Now...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2014
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Foreign DVDs, Call number: DVD FOREIGN LIKSummary: Dwelling on his past glory as a prize-winning author, Ryota wastes the money he makes as a private detective on gambling and can barely pay child support. After the death of his father, his aging mother and beautiful ex-wife seem to be moving on with their lives. Renewing contact with his initially distrusting family, Ryota struggles to take back control of his existence and to find a lasting...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2017
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in TC Film Fest DVDs, Call number: DVD TCFF AFTSummary: Haunted by the mysterious loss of her grandmother many years before, a beautiful young mother (Makiko Esumi as Yumiko) struggles to come to terms with the sudden loss of her husband. Yumiko remarries and with her young son moves to her new husband's home in a remote village on the wild, untamed Sea of Japan. There, with time, she awakens to find love, understanding, happiness and a sense of peace.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2000
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Foreign DVDs, Call number: DVD FOREIGN MABSummary: Surreal Japanese drama about a latex doll which becomes human. Hideo (Itsuji Itao) lavishes affection upon his doll, Nozomi (Doona Bae), and seems to appreciate her silently passive nature. Unbeknownst to him, however, one day Nozomi comes to life and sets out in search of human experience. On her wanderings she happens upon a video rental store, where she meets Junichi (Arata). As an emotional...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2009
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Foreign DVDs, Call number: BLU-RAY FOREIGN AIRSummary: Three sisters, Sachi, Yoshino and Chika, live together in the city of Kamakura, Japan. When their father, absent from the family home for the last fifteen years, dies, they travel to the countryside for his funeral and meet their shy, teenage half sister. Bonding quickly with the orphaned Suzu, they invite her to live with them. Suzu eagerly agrees and a new life of joyful discovery begins for...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2016
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Foreign DVDs, Call number: DVD FOREIGN OURKore-eda, Hirokazu
Summary: Follows one day in the life of the Yokoyamas, as they gather for a commemorative ritual.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Criterion Collection 2011
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Foreign DVDs, Call number: DVD FOREIGN STISummary: "If you could choose only one memory to hold on to for eternity, what would it be? That's the question at the heart of Hirokazu Kore-eda's revelatory international breakthrough, a bittersweet fantasia in which the recently deceased find themselves in a limbo where they must select a single cherished moment from their life to be recreated on film for them to take into the next world. After...
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: 2021
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Foreign DVDs, Call number: DVD FOREIGN AFTSummary: In Kore-eda's thought-provoking vision, the newly deceased find themselves in a way station somewhere between Heaven and Earth. With the help of dedicated caseworkers, each soul is given three days to choose one cherished memory for their life that they will relive for eternity. As the film reveals, recognizing happiness and finding a life's worth of meaning in a single event is no simple task.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: New Yorker Video 2000
Copies Available at Woodmere
1 available in Foreign DVDs, Call number: DVD FOREIGN AFTFranky, Lily
Summary: A Japanese family that makes ends meet by shoplifting takes in a little girl they found alone on the street.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Magnolia Home Entertainment 2019
Copies Available at Woodmere
3 available in Foreign DVDs, Call number: DVD FOREIGN SHOMaeda, Koki
Summary: Separated from his father and younger brother by his parents' divorce, twelve-year-old Koichi puts all his hope in the tale that if two people make the same wish while watching two trains pass each other, the wish will come true and his family will be together again.
Format: moving image
Publisher / Publication Date: Magnolia Home Entertainment 2012