SKIP CITY INTERNATIONAL D-Cinema FESTIVAL 2009

A desire to understand draws men and women. All they want to do is to discover their true feelings. The more they spend time together, the more the distance between them grows, swaying away from each other. A story of three different couples on swings.

Director:

Minehito Fujita

Cast:

Kaori Tsuji, Toshihiro Yashiba, Aoba Kawai

Director Profile
After working for a commercial company, Fujita worked as a freelance commercial director for fifteen years. This is his first short film produced and written by himself.

A boy finds a shiny glass marble that belongs to a girl, but takes it with him. He plays with the marble mimicking a fox with his right hand. Then he meets a woman who gives him a paper crane.

Director:

Kiyoshi Endo

Cast:

Shiki Takaiwa, Hana Kawaminami, Chiharu Takegami

"I think you would look good with an Afro" says Nieko to Yudai. She is not his girlfriend, but they have sex occasionally. Yudai decides to confess his true feelings for her when his hair grows long enough to get the afro look. Then, an incident happens.

Director:

Kyohei Fujimura

Cast:

Tokio Emoto, Haruka Anno, Noriko Eguchi

Director Profile
Born 1983 in Ishikawa Prefecture, Fujimura graduated form Japan Academy of Moving Images. His original screenplay won Grand Prix at 11th Hakodate Harbor Illumination Film Festival. Last year, a re-edited version of his thesis film Two Steps Before Hitting Bottom was screened at SKIP City and this year marks his consecutive entry at the festival.

A newly wedded wife cooks rice for her husband, but she bakes bread for herself. The husband thinks that the family should eat the same thing together, and it causes a trouble between them.

Director:

Kazutaka Shimizu

Cast:

Kunihiro Suda, Miho Tanaka

Director Profile
Born 1979, Shimizu graduated from Nihon University College of Art. His student films Sento Story and Etceteras Surrounding Ramune have been screened at many film festivals around the world. He is now working as an assistant at his college while working on various projects.

Elemi is an electric pole who falls in love with Takahashi who works for an electric company. She pretends to be human and makes a call to him. But her action causes controversy among the electric poles and she ends up in the electric poles' court hearing.

Director:

Hideto Nakata

Cast:

Tomoko Okumura, Kazushi Watanabe, Kyouzou Kudo

Director Profile
Born 1972 in Hyogo Prefecture, Nakata launched an animation collaborative team Sovat Theater and produced a puppet animation short Auto Mommy. Aside from the animation productions, they also organize exhibitions on the 3D objects and various art related events.

It's been forty nine days since Inoru, a great admirer of Peter Pan, passed away. His childhood friends Hal and Takeru visit the room Inoru called Neverland. They discover a teddy bear hidden behind the stacks of books.

Director:

Shoh Kataoka

Cast:

Saki Fukuzumi, Tatsushi Naito, Yuya Kawamura

Director Profile
Born in Sapporo, Kataoka directed Ten Million Yen produced by tanpen jp. His short films have been screened at Shortshorts Film Festival in 2008 and 2009. His other short film credits include a period piece Zouni which was produced at Young Filmmakers Lab hosted by Kyoto Prefecture.

Gigantic fingers start attacking people! At the time in the White House, President Bush worries about weapons of mass destruction, which never have been found…

Director:

Kei Ishikawa

Cast:

Wincent Walczak, Dorota Kiekowicz-Suszka, Piotr Pecyna

Director Profile
After graduating from Tohoku University, Ishikawa attended Polish National Film School. His short films have been screened at over 30 international film festivals and won many awards. In 2007, Ishikawa organized a program on Polish short films at the National Film Center in Tokyo. He was a recipient of the 2007-2008 Fellowship under the Japanese Government Overseas Study Program for Artists.

Miraido specializes in relic disposal. They organize and dispose articles of the deceased for the family members. A simple job as it may seem, it sheds a light on various things about the deceased.

Director:

Gousuke Tsuchida

Cast:

Shinichirou Chinen, Masaki Tawata, Matthew Anderson

Director Profile
From 1996, Tsuchida served as a cameraman for TV drama at a production company. In 2006, he moved to Okinawa and has been making independent films utilizing his over 10 years experience in a TV industry as a professional cameraman.

On the very first morning of Ayumi's high school life, her mother cooks a special dish called "ugly fried eggs." Her father videotapes the scene. Her mother recites a strange prayer at the table. There is something strange going on at Ayumi's household this morning.

Director:

Satoru Tezuka

Cast:

Yu Ishizu, Mitsuko Tenda, Kenshiro Nakata

Director Profile
Born 1983, Tezuka started making films since he was in grade school. He studied filmmaking at a college and ENBU Seminar. In 2008, his film Summit News was nominated for the 6th edition of NHK Minimini Contents Grand Prix.

Ienaga has lost his job. He sees Kiyohito, his son from the previous marriage on a television and decides to give him a visit. He discovers that his son has a new step father, but decides to help him run a marathon.

Director:

Hiroaki Mimii

Cast:

Kenji Kanechiku, Yuto Adachi, Fukuda Eiji

Director Profile
Born 1984 in Tottori, Mimii studied filmmaking at Nagoya Visual Arts and started making independent films. He launched SAIRO, a filmmakers collaborative based in Tokyo, which produced at a pace of one film per month.

An afternoon before the summer vacation starts, a girl with a short pants waits in a school playground. A boy shows up and joins her to play in an empty school. But he doesn't look very happy.

Director:

Shigeru Okada

Cast:

Emika Tsurugasaki, Shou Hamada

Director Profile
Born 1975, Okada directed independent films I Confess One Fine Day and Moon Is Blue. He works on various shoots as producer, writer, and director.