The Chrysanthemum and the Guillotine

Wolz – Life and Transfiguration of a German Anarchist

November 1973 •German

Soldier Ignaz Wolz returns from WWI with an immeasurable hatred of capitalist war profiteers. He decides to start his own revolution, but tries to stay away from the organized class struggle. He steals from the rich men and divides the wealth among the poor. One day, Wolz is arrested and sentenced to life in prison; seven years later he is released due to mass protests. More than ever, it is hard for him to fit in. He severs ties with his former companions, who reject his ideas, and leaves Germany.

The Scent of Incense

May 1964 •Japanese

After her mother runs away from home, Tomoko is raised to be a geisha. One day Tomoko meets her mother in a red-light district in Tokyo and her life deeply gets in trouble.

The Grand Master

October 1948 •Japanese

Shogi, a Japanese form of chess, is a game that requires skill and determination. When poor sandal-maker Sakata decides to pursue his dream of becoming the Shogi Grand Master Champion, everything is at stake – including his family. What will it cost for Sakata to follow his passion?

September 1923

September 2023 •Japanese

Based on the murder of nine street peddlers in the aftermath of the Great Kanto earthquake.

Summer Days with Coo

July 2007 •Japanese

A small, lone Kappa miraculously survives over 200 years into modern day Japan, when he is found by young Koichi. Coo, who is secretly adopted by Koichi's family, searches with his new human friend for unpopulated places in hopes of finding any remaining of his kind.

Sumo

April 2025 •Tamil

When Shiva finds an unconscious stranger on the beach, he unknowingly begins a journey that leads to Japan's sumo rings. With truth and loyalty, he helps his friend reclaim his identity and honor, showing that bonds of the heart can rise above borders and power.

Anarchist from Colony

June 2017 •Korean

Based on the life of the Korean anarchist Park Yeol, the film shows his struggle to counter the massacre of Koreans by the government during the 1923 great Kanto earthquake, focusing on his activities as the leader of the anti-Japanese organization Bulryeongsa and his relationship with Japanese comrade Fumiko Kaneko.

Slacker

July 1991 •English

Austin, Texas, is an Eden for the young and unambitious, from the enthusiastically eccentric to the dangerously apathetic. Here, the nobly lazy can eschew responsibility in favor of nursing their esoteric obsessions. The locals include a backseat philosopher who passionately expounds on his dream theories to a seemingly comatose cabbie, a young woman who tries to hawk Madonna's Pap test to anyone who will listen and a kindly old anarchist looking for recruits.

Children Hand in Hand

March 1964 •Japanese

The Kanto Region Is Also Expanding

June 1967 •Japanese

A man who was released from prison wanders around the Kanto region and gets involved with the local yakuza.

Children of Paradise

March 1945 •French

In a chaotic 19th-century Paris teeming with aristocrats, thieves, psychics, and courtesans, theater mime Baptiste is in love with the mysterious actress Garance. But Garance, in turn, is loved by three other men: pretentious actor Frederick, conniving thief Lacenaire, and Count Edouard of Montray.

Nineteen Eighty-Four

November 1984 •English

George Orwell's novel of a totalitarian future society in which a man whose daily work is rewriting history tries to rebel by falling in love.

November

September 2003 •Spanish

Impelled by a spirit which still preserves a patina of idealism, Alfredo arrives to Madrid with the intention to create "a performance that is free, straight from the heart, capable of making people feel alive". His concept of what acting should be begins beyond the stage, out in the streets face to face with the public. Outdoors, in any town square, in a park or in the city's most commercial street, Alfredo and his troupe November start the show; demons to provoke passers-by, displays of social conscience, actions taken to the extreme to put the forces of law and order on full alert. There are no limits, no censorship; only ideas which are always valid so long as the public ceases to be the public and becomes part of the show swept by surprise, fear, tears or laughter. Theater as life, life as theater… there is no longer any difference.

The Wave

March 2008 •German

A school teacher discusses types of government with his class. His students find it too boring to repeatedly go over national socialism and believe that dictatorship cannot be established in modern Germany. He starts an experiment to show how easily the masses can become manipulated.

Salvador (Puig Antich)

May 2006 •Catalan

The story of Salvador Puig Antich, one of the last political prisoners to be executed under Franco's Fascist State in 1974.

Memoirs of a Geisha

December 2005 •English

In the years before World War II, a penniless Japanese child is torn from her family to work as a maid in a geisha house.

Dancing Girls of Izu

March 1954 •Japanese

A dancer girl in a touring company met a high school boy in a port town. The story is about their first love that is very touching and sorrowful. An adaptation of the Kawabata Yasunari short story.

The Strategy of the Snail

December 1993 •Spanish

A group of tenants living in an old house are confronted with having to move out due to a renovation project the city has undertaken. The tenants decide to unite and come up with a strategy, but in the process—while the landlord and his aggressive attorney are chasing them—the tenants transform into the opposite of who they once were.

Manuel, le fils emprunté

February 1990 •French

Juan Alvarez, a Spanish refugee in Canada, shoemaker, picks up at his home Manuel, a 12-year-old Portuguese teenager, whom he teaches to read, to assert his rights and who speaks of the Spanish civil war.

The Nada Gang

February 1974 •French

Nada, named after a gang of Spanish anarchists, is a small, confused band of French terrorists. They kidnap the American ambassador after one of his regular visits to an exclusive brothel. The gang starts to quarrel amongst themselves as to the diplomat's fate, while the police purge suspects in their attempts to destroy the Nada faction. As the violence escalates on both sides, the States and the terrorists are forced to use one another's methods in an increasingly desperate and relentless conflict.