Directing
Japanese filmmaker, born in 1965.
A young man kills his bride on the day of his marriage and goes insane. He wakes up in an asylum with no memory, left in the hands of two mysterious doctors who relate his condition with his biological identity.
Engram is a three-part piece revolving around a few good old ideas such as photos inside of photos, movies inside of movies, photos inside of movies, movies inside of photos, and (even) a film director inside a TV set.
A young girl lives in a Western-style mansion with a middle-aged man in a wheelchair. A boy is attracted to her sweet and innocent smile and tries to approach her. However, first love never comes true.
Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" goes goth in Mari Terashima's screen adaptation of the children's classic. Terashima brings together Goth Loli performance troupe Rose de Reficul et Guiggles, doll maker Mari Shimizu and magician and actor Mame Yamada to create a macabre trip down the rabbit hole. The film appears animated, but the gothic characters are as real as can be.
In a secluded corner of the world, there stands a chamber of sweet nectar, where the Mistress imparts the secrets of love to all who come. This room is easily accessible to all. But no one wants to enter it. One day, a young man finds himself drawn to it despite better knowledge. He has been reincarnated for thousands of years and now, finally, exists in this room at this moment. Pain has turned into sweet love, a kind of rooted love, and through it, he becomes one with the Mother, with himself, and with the universe.
A boy who shuts himself away in his green room longs for his mother, but his longing for her eventually leads him into a world of hopeless delusion and loneliness.
One day, high school teacher Paul finds a puppy on the banks of the River Thames. It turns out to be the puppy of Her Majesty the Queen of the British Royal Family. This film was selected for the Oberhausen International Film Festival.
In 19th century Europe, photographs of the “grotesque” such as deformed bodies and corpses were popular and enthusiastically traded and collected. In contemporary Japan, a video about voluptuous little Sayomi who loves to collect Mickey Mouse paraphernalia—how do people look at her as she sways to Baroque in a white negligee? Do modern-day cavaliers court her? Will her domineering mother save her from evil eyes? The director hands her the video camera and attempts to present the world through her perspective. She dresses her up in extravagance, shows off her glamorous presence, and proves that she is no sissy object or victim—she is larger than life.
An aged lady and his idiot manservant are secluded in a red chamber. The room has no clocks, and all day a ritual is held in the form of the grand dame's grumblings. Perhaps only a select few spectators may see the sublime in her. Suddenly, a portrait of a young woman disrupts her tedium, and the painting comes to life.
This is the director's first diary film, drawn in collaboration with a diverse cast and manga artist Yumi Enomoto. It is a serious self-documentary work with a comedic touch.
The heroine is played by Amane Kazama, daughter of Visual Brains, and the film also features dolls by Dollhouse Noah and regular artists Anran, Ochazuke Nori, Hisashi Kishida, Shoichi Motohara of MONT★SUCHT, and Mame Yamada.
Featuring two schoolgirls and a woman who appears to be their mother, this surreal piece of girlish dreaming translates the world of Midori Ozaki and Leonora Carrington's works into the visual world.