Date

Films

December

Thursday, December 20

From 6 P.M.

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Mini Concert & Documentary Film

Never Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki

3 years ago, the Academy Award-winning animated film director Hayao Miyazaki shocked the world when he announced his retirement at age 72. But his creative impulse never faded. After meeting a group of young animators who specialize in computer graphics, he decides to make a short film using CGI to explore new expressive possibilities. Will the short film he releases change the future of Japanese animation? The creative process proves so difficult that he almost calls it quits. This program documents the tremendous struggle that unfolds behind the scenes as Miyazaki, inspired by a new medium, wrestles with CGI for the first time.

Special Event:
Solo Guitar Concert by Sameh Moussa!

Duration: Mini Concert + 70 minutes (film)

November

Thursday, November 15

From 6 P.M.

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Special Feature "Living in Japan"

Home Sweet Tokyo

When his Japanese mother-in-law passes away, 36-year-old Englishman Bryan Jenkins moves to Tokyo with his family to live with his father-in-law. While his wife heads out to work in the city each day and his daughter strives to adapt to a new school and country, he must come to grips with being a homemaker in Japan. Each day presents new challenges, whether it be the Japanese bathing culture, learning how to make a proper school lunch – all alongside a silent, gruff father-in-law. Full of laughter and love – and plenty of cultural misunderstandings, witness life in Tokyo through the eyes of a foreigner who just wants to keep his family safe and happy.

Duration: 3 episodes (17 minutes each) + talk event

October

Wednesday, October 17

From 6 P.M.

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Special Feature "Let's go to School" Vol. 2

Swing Girls

At a rural girl's high school in northern Japan, remedial math classes are being held during the summer break. Looking for a way out, Tomoko and two of her classmates volunteer to deliver lunches left behind by the school's brass band on the way to support the baseball team at a crucial game. However, when the band subsequently suffers a bout of food poisoning, Tomoko and her companions seize the chance to ditch summer school as replacement musicians. Despite a severe lack of talent, they gradually succumb to the infectious rhythms of big band jazz and start to take the music seriously. Just as they are about to perform in public for the first time, the band members they replaced return and the ring-ins are shunted to the sidelines. However, this fails to dampen the girls' newfound spirit, and they take up part-time jobs and practice in the streets to achieve their dream of playing at the school's music festival.

Directed by Shinobu Yaguchi / 2004 / 105min.

September

Wednesday, September 26

From 6 P.M.

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Special Feature "Let's go to School" Vol. 1

Robocon

Satomi is aimlessly attending a vocational school and becomes a member of the robot club by chance. There are two robot clubs at her school. The first club's members are handpicked elite and have regularly participated in the robot contest. The other one, which Satomi belongs to, is full of hacks and the club is about to close down. The second club participates in a local contest, but can't even pass the first stage. However, their unique idea is praised and they are invited to attend the National Robot Contest. Satomi, who hates losing, burns with passion for the contest in order not be disgraced in public.

Directed by Furumaya Tomoyuki / Production Year: 2003 / Running Time: 119 min

August

Tuesday, August 14

From 6 P.M.

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Special Feature "War And Peace" Vol. 2

Sadako Story

April 1954, Hiroshima. Sadako has entered the 6th grade of elementary school. Her new teacher is strict but also very kind, so that Sadako enjoys her school life, especially sports. She is even crucial in helping class win the championship in the autumn sports day running her favorite race. But toward the end of fall, Sadako has caught a bad cold, which makes her lymph nodes painful. Even so, she remains the most cheerful girl in her class. Because she didn't seem to recover, she was eventually examined by a member of the A-bomb Casualties Commission on the advice of a neighborhood doctor. It was discovered that it was not a cold she was suffering from, but leukemia, caused by the A-bomb that was dropped on her city when she was an infant....

Directed by Seijiro Koyama / Production Year: 1989 / Running Time: 96min

July

Tuesday, July 24

From 6 P.M.

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Special Feature "War And Peace" Vol. 1

Hotaru No Haka (Grave of the Fireflies)

An anime movie with events taking place in the city of Kobe near the end of World War Two, portraying the struggles of two young siblings to stay alive after losing their parents.

The city of Kobe is subjected to air raids daily, and during chaos the child Seita and his younger sister Setsuko are separated from their mother. When Seita makes his way to a public school, the place of refuge during times of emergency, he finds his mother in a very crirical condition, and she soon passes away...

Directed by Isao Nakahata / Production Year: 1988 / Running Time: 89min

June

Tuesday, June 26

From 6 P.M.

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Special Feature "Family Movies" Vol. 2

Summer Holiday Everyday

The Rinkaiji family, by all appearances, is a well-to-do Japanese family. The father Nariyuki works in an elite corporation, something which gives his wife Yoshiko status in their suburban neighborhood. But the daughter Sugina, who herself has secretly stopped going to school because she is being bullied, discovers one day that her step-father, somewhat of an individualist, has quit his job.

Directed by Kaneko Shusuke / Production Year: 1994 / Running Time: 94 min

April

Wednesday, April 18

From 6 P.M.

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Special Feature "Family Movies" Vol. 1

Ah Spring

Hiroshi graduated from a prestigious university, married into the local gentry and is an executive at a regional securities company. His middle class complacency receives a jolt when Sasaichi, a shabby, ill-mannered elderly man turns up at the doorstep claiming to be Hiroshi's father. Hiroshi refuse to believe this since he was always told his father had died years before. But some things Sasaichi says do jar Hiroshi's memory and he is further dumbfounded when his mother admits that she lied because she just wanted to forget Sasaichi who was a bad father and a worse husband.

Directed by Shinji Somai / Production Year: 1998 / Running Time: 100 min

March

Wednesday, March 14

From 6 P.M.

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Special Feature "Studio Ghibli Anime Movies"

The Wind Rises

Jiro dreams of flying and designing beautiful airplanes, inspired by the famous Italian aeronautical designer Caproni. Nearsighted from a young age and unable to be a pilot, Jiro joins a major Japanese engineering company in 1927 and becomes one of the world's most innovative and accomplished airplane designers. The film chronicles much of his life, depicting key historical events, including the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the Great Depression, the tuberculosis epidemic and Japan's plunge into war. Jiro meets and falls in love with Nahoko, and grows and cherishes his friendship with his colleague Honjo.

Directed by Hayao Miyazaki / Production Year: 2013 / Running Time: 126 min

February

Wednesday, February 14

From 6 P.M.

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Special Feature "Makoto Shinkai Movies"

The Garden of Words

When Takao, a high school student dreaming of becoming a shoemaker, skips school one day in favor of sketching shoes in a rainy garden, he has no idea how much his life will change when he encounters the mysterious Yukino. Older, but perhaps not much wiser, she seems adrift in the world. The two strike up an unusual relationship through chance meetings in the same garden on each rainy day. But the rainy season is coming to a close, leaving many things left unshared between them…

Directed by Makoto Shinkai / Production Year: 2013 / Running Time: 46 min

The Voices of a Distant Star
 

Middle school students Mikako Nagamine and Noboru Terao are close friends and members of the same club activities. But in the summer of 2046, Mikako tells Noboru that she has been chosen as a Select Member of the United Nations Space Army. Mikako leaves Earth in the winter of 2047, while Noboru goes on to high school in Japan. Separated by space, the two try to stay in touch by mobile mail. However, as Mikako goes farther out in the solar system on board the Lysithea spaceship, it takes increasingly longer for each to receive the other's mail. Noboru stays on Earth, frustrated by his situation and resigned to the fact that he can only wait for Mikako's emails. As time goes by, the Lysithea fleet approaches a time warp, a situation that make both Mikako and Noboru acutely aware of the time gap separating them.

Directed by Makoto Shinkai / Production Year: 2002 / Running Time: 25 min

January

Wednesday, January 24

From 6 P.M.

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Special Feature "New Movies" - Vol. 4

Nobody To Watch Over Me

The Funamura family is the target of mass media attention after their first son commits act of murder. Furthermore, every move of detective Katsuura takes in protecting the bewildered daughter of the family, Saori is being fully exposed over the internet. In a deadly game of hide and seek Katsuura and Saori are eventually freed from the malicious attempts of internet addicts.
 

Directed by Kimizuka Ryoichi / Production Year: 2009 / Running Time: 118 min