On Summer Sand

In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.

Yusuke Kafuku, a stage actor and director, still unable, after two years, to cope with the loss of his beloved wife, accepts to direct Uncle Vanya at a theater festival in Hiroshima. There he meets Misaki, an introverted young woman, appointed to drive his car. In between rides, secrets from the past and heartfelt confessions will be unveiled.

A tragedy strikes a young woman's life without warning or reason. She continues living while searching for meaning in a lonely world.

In the outskirts of Tokyo, a poor but close-knit group living on the fringes of society survives through shoplifting and odd jobs. When Osamu and his son take in a neglected young girl, their already fragile existence begins to unravel. As the family grows attached to her, buried secrets surface, forcing them to confront the true meaning of love, belonging, and what makes a family.

After the death of their estranged father, 3 adult sisters invite their teenaged half-sister to live with them.

An elderly Nagasaki hibakusha spends a summer caring for her four grandchildren, whose curiosity about the 1945 bombing stirs buried memories and moral questions. When an American nephew from Hawaii visits, the family confronts grief, guilt, and the possibility of reconciliation across generations.

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

On one random day in the San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male caretaker, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter will each become part of a dazzling multiplicity of plots, but one story.

After being diagnosed with a terminal illness, Futaba resolves to spend her remaining time reuniting her broken family, reopening the long-closed bathhouse, and helping her shy daughter Azumi learn to stand on her own.

Ryota is an unpopular writer although he won a literary award 15 years ago. Now, Ryota works as a private detective. He is divorced from his ex-wife Kyoko and he has an 11-year-old son Shingo. His mother Yoshiko lives alone at her apartment. One day, Ryota, his ex-wife Kyoko, and son Shingo gather at Yoshiko's apartment. A typhoon passes and the family must stay there all night long.

A 10-year-old boy spends a summer in the country with a childless couple and a precocious girl.

In this loose adaptation of "Hamlet," illegitimate son Kôichi Nishi climbs to a high position within a Japanese corporation and marries the crippled daughter of company vice president Iwabuchi. At the reception, the wedding cake is a replica of their corporate headquarters, but an aspect of the design reminds the party of the hushed-up death of Nishi's father. It is then that Nishi unleashes his plan to avenge his father's death.

Following the death of his wife, a young father's hold on reality crumbles, and a strange presence begins to stalk him from the shadowy recesses of the apartment he shares with his two young sons.

Evan, a musically gifted orphan, runs away from his orphanage and searches New York City for his birth parents. On his journey, he's taken under the wing of the Wizard, a homeless man who lives in an abandoned theater. After discovering his talent, the Wizard gives Evan the name "August Rush" and devises a plan to profit from his talent. Little does Evan know that his parents, Lyla and Louis, are searching for him too.

Life for a happy couple is turned upside down after their young son dies in an accident.

Their parents are dead. They should be sad, but they can't cry. So they form a kick-ass band. This is the story of four 13-year-olds in search of their emotions.

Set in Tokyo in 1940, the peaceful life of the Nogami Family suddenly changes when the father, Shigeru, is arrested and accused of being a Communist. His wife Kayo works frantically from morning to night to maintain the household and bring up her two daughters with the support of Shigeru's sister Hisako and Shigeru's ex-student Yamazaki, but her husband does not return. WWII breaks out and casts dark shadows on the entire country, but Kayo still tries to keep her cheerful determination, and sustain the family with her love. This is an emotional drama of a mother and an eternal message for peace.

A grieving man receives a mysterious, personal invitation to meet with God at a place called 'The Shack'.

Shuhei is leading a tough life. His alcoholic mother Akiko can only hook up with bad guys and order Shuhei to go get money from his disapproving grandparents instead of going to school. Except raising the little half-sister, his rock-bottom life seems to have no end.

A mother and daughter spend a night together after the daughter reveals that she will kill herself by the end of it.

Struggling to navigate a promising career, a new romance, and her family life, a photography student confronts notions of love and loss during her senior year of college.

Almost 50 years ago this year, the legendary Pelé played a match in Doha Sports Stadium. On that fateful day in 1973, young Nasser is desperate to see his idol take the field. But he is stuck in Arabic class and must avoid the wrath of his teacher as he attempts to get his hands on a ticket in this charming short about the beautiful game and its power to bring people together.

Chrissy is a teen who spends all her time online. After being pushed to the brink by both of her parents, she steals her mom's car and runs away to pick up her internet boyfriend.

Pio Amato, a 14 year-old member of a small Romani community in southern Italian town of Gioia Tauro in Calabria, is in a hurry to grow up. Pio follows his older brother Cosimo everywhere and from him he learns how to hustle and how to navigate the streets of his hometown. One night Pio sets out to prove to his brother that he is as good or better than him but, when things go wrong, a series of events will forever change the way he sees the world.

Naples. Present day. Giovanna, a combative 60-year-old social worker on the frontline of the daily war against pervasive criminality, is confronted, like a modern Antigone, with a moral dilemma that threatens to destroy her work and her life. Giovanna runs an after-school centre that takes care of underprivileged children; a grassroots alternative to the mafia dominance of the city. But one day, young Maria, wife of a ruthless Camorra criminal on the run, and her two children take refuge at the centre, and ask Giovanna for protection.

Ava, 13, is spending the summer on the Atlantic coast when she learns that she will lose her sight sooner than expected. Her mother decides to act as if everything were normal so as to spend their best summer ever. Ava confronts the problem in her own way. She steals a big black dog that belongs to a young man on the run...

The day of her 19 years old, Erin discovers that she can travel exactly one year through time using her polaroid photos. Knowing this, she tries to warn her dead twin brother, Sam, about his looming fate...

A young girl lost in life and all she wants is to drown in the deep sea with all her thoughts and feelings.

Bambi's tale unfolds from season to season as the young prince of the forest learns about life, love, and friends.

A stonemason who killed his landlord faces hardship trying to reintegrate into society after being released from prison.

A comic study of 20th-century history, reconstructing the life of writer, creator and professional prisoner Tulse Luper. Born in 1911 Newport and last heard of in 1989, Luper’s life is pieced together from the evidence found in 92 suitcases scattered across the globe. In the first of three parts, we follow Luper through three distinct episodes: as a child during the First World War; as an explorer in Mormon Utah; and as a writer in Belgium during the rise of fascism.

Emi has just lost her best friend in a car accident. Upon discovering this, she decides to isolate herself from everyone and go cycling through the city. Along the way, she begins to encounter different places and people she had never met, embarking on a journey through her life.

At the end of August, a young woman is chased by an angry mob of hooligans under the windows of a bus because she decides to tear down a poster grossly insulting her husband, the staunch communist and deputy Balcar. She only gets a defence from the prosecutor Ronešová, who decides to convict and prosecute the perpetrators and bystanders of the unfortunate event. The principled Ronešová is oblivious to personal problems and sets out to fight against the relics of a happily extinguished social movement, with the right-wing defence lawyer Kahan being no match for her.

An ode to Rom-Coms of the past - Company follows anti-romantic Julia as she navigates the world of love, with her friends by her side, after a night of being swept off her feet by a dashing young man.

“If you jerk off a 100 times, you die.” This threat rings through the ears of our main character. One day he has to choose between imminent hell and the impetuousness of adolescence.

A young Italian man brings his new girlfriend home to his eccentric family.

On their seventeenth birthday, a young teen stands at the threshold of time, grappling with the bittersweet realization that their childhood and the world they once knew are slipping away.

A group of kids navigate their lives and interpersonal relationships while a rumor about the end of the world spreads around town.

In 1988, Hokkaido's Hokusei Yoichi High School became the first high school in Japan to accept students who had previously dropped out of high school from nationwide. This special follows Yoshiie Hiroyuki (based on a former graduate of Hokusei Yoichi) and his friends from the time they enroll in the school during it's first year accepting delinquents. This is a brilliant tale of troubled youths trying to break free from their former lives- fighting through various gut-wrenching challenges on their way- while the teachers struggle to help them every step of the way.