Ryuji Otsuka Movies, TV Shows, and Filmography
Ryuji Otsuka
Camera
Biography
Born in Tokyo, Japan. Came to Beijing in 2005 and finished his first directed narrative film Lingling's Garden. Afterwards, he has maintained his interest in discovering the changes in the Chinese society and personal lives. He is also keen in presenting the characters’ inner activities through images. As a Director of Photography, he participated in The Judge（Liu Jie, Venezia Orizzonti), The Warmth of Orange Peel (Huang Ji, Berlinale Generation), Egg and Stone (Huang Ji,Tiger Award Rotterdam IFF), When Night Falls (Ying Liang, Locarno Best Director). His films screened in international festivals such as Venice, Berlin, Lacorno and Rotterdam. In 2013, his documentary Trace (Hong Kong IFF, Documentary Competition) portrays a Chinese/Japanese family living under the Senkaku Islands dispute. In 2014, his second documentary Beijing Ants (Hotdocs), was about capitalism in modern China. He is a teacher of Lixianting Film School, participated at Berlinale Talents in 2015. In 2017, he co-directed feature film The Foolish Bird that won the Special Mention of the Generation 14plus international Jury at 67th Berlin International Film Festival.
Filmography Movies
Production
The Foolish Bird
Lynn lives with her grandparents in Meicheng, a small Hunanese city unsettled by an ongoing rape-murder investigation. With little structure to regulate her life outside of school, where she is bullied, Lynn begins smuggling and reselling confiscated mobile phones with her friend, which leads to encounters with the city’s seedier inhabitants.
Stonewalling
20 year-old Lynn is told she needs English classes, flight attendant school, and a go getter-attitude. She perseveres along this path of upward mobility until she finds out she's pregnant. Indecisive and running out of time, she tells her boyfriend she's had an abortion and instead returns to her feuding parents and their failing clinic to try and figure out what's next.
When Night Falls
The mother of a murderer awaits and prepares to meet her son. The true story of a man who killed six Shanghai policemen after suffering police beatings as a punishment for riding an unlicensed bicycle. This film was produced as a part of the Jeonju Digital Project.
Beijing Ants
Ryuji Otsuka and Huang Ji are the ‘main characters' in this very personal homemade documentary that's funny, angry, scary and stirring all at once. He's the Japanese director of the film; she's his wife and a prizewinning filmmaker in her own right. For independent artists and filmmakers, finding an affordable place to live with their young daughter is a never-ending struggle. A side effect of China's astonishing prosperity is sky-high property prices – about $10,000 per square metre in Beijing. The landlords, movers and neighbours they encounter seem bent on driving them nuts. But never underestimate the resilience, determination and lung power of enraged, protective young Chinese parents. Otsuka's sometimes concealed camera reveals intimately how life feels, from ground level, in urban China today.
Judge
In a small northern Chinese city in 1997, Judge Tian privately struggles with the loss of his daughter, killed by a stolen car in a hit-and-run accident. On the bench he encounters Qiuwu, a mechanic accused of stealing two cars. Perhaps influenced by his emotional state, the outwardly impassive judge imposes an almost-obsolete criminal law on Qiuwu that sentences him to death for his crime. Desperate to mitigate his sentence, Qiuwu agrees to donate his kidney to a rich businessman dying of a terminal illness, hoping at the very least that his impoverished family may profit from his demise.
The Foolish Bird
Lynn lives with her grandparents in Meicheng, a small Hunanese city unsettled by an ongoing rape-murder investigation. With little structure to regulate her life outside of school, where she is bullied, Lynn begins smuggling and reselling confiscated mobile phones with her friend, which leads to encounters with the city’s seedier inhabitants.
The Foolish Bird
Lynn lives with her grandparents in Meicheng, a small Hunanese city unsettled by an ongoing rape-murder investigation. With little structure to regulate her life outside of school, where she is bullied, Lynn begins smuggling and reselling confiscated mobile phones with her friend, which leads to encounters with the city’s seedier inhabitants.
Egg and Stone
14-year-old Honggui is forced to live with her uncle and aunt in the countryside. She is not wanted by them, nor was she wanted by her parents, who apparently intended to farm her out to family for two years so they could work in the city. Years pass. When she tries to make contact, her real mother is too busy to take her call.
Egg and Stone
14-year-old Honggui is forced to live with her uncle and aunt in the countryside. She is not wanted by them, nor was she wanted by her parents, who apparently intended to farm her out to family for two years so they could work in the city. Years pass. When she tries to make contact, her real mother is too busy to take her call.
Egg and Stone
14-year-old Honggui is forced to live with her uncle and aunt in the countryside. She is not wanted by them, nor was she wanted by her parents, who apparently intended to farm her out to family for two years so they could work in the city. Years pass. When she tries to make contact, her real mother is too busy to take her call.
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