ARTicle films
ARTicle Films is a Tokyo-based combined sales and production company specializing in Japanese independent films. Established in 2015. We handle films in a range of lengths, from short to features; budgets, from micro to big; and genres. We are best known for documentaries about art, music, ecology, and human rights. A Japan-Mexico co-production The Legacy of Frida Kahlo” (2015), has screened widely at international festivals including the Hot Docs, Guadalajara IFF. Short Film TOKYO KURDS(2018) screened on HOT DOCS and 20 other film festivals. Future Version of TOKYO KURDS(2021) was screened at the Jeonju International Film Festival as an International Competition, and TIDF Asian Competition, as well as theatrical screened nationwide. I am a comedian(2022 ) was selected for DMZ industry Rough Cut Presentation and Cannes Docs, Doc in Progress then World premiere at DMZ and Tokyo International Film Festival.
The company also succeeded as a sales company, titles have been selected for numerous festivals such as IFFR, Tokyo, Sheffield,Yamagata,TIDF, Jeonju, Karlovy Vary,FICFICUNAM , and so on.
Deep in the mountains of central Japan is a chalet-styled boarding school for teenagers who had experienced some form of difficulty in the formal education system. 70 percent were previously unable to attend school regularly. Here at Tsugeno High School, the students are allowed to study and go through their days in a relaxed and unrestrained program, according to each person’s needs, based on fairness and equality. Not surprisingly though, it’s not paradise and the teachers get their share of headaches.
ARTicle FIlms Line Up ~2024 Documentary
ヘッディング 2
Deep in the mountains far from the urban rat race, a utopian boarding school provides a cocoon for troubled Japanese teenagers to change and grow. The filmmaker watches over closely as Minoki and Kotomi struggle with dilemmas until they finally find doorways to their respective paths.
The Shape of the Wind
Kenta TANAKA
Deep in the mountains of central Japan is a chalet-styled boarding school for teenagers who had experienced some form of difficulty in the formal education system. 70 percent were previously unable to attend school regularly. Here at Tsugeno High School, the students are allowed to study and go through their days in a relaxed and unrestrained program, according to each person’s needs, based on fairness and equality. Not surprisingly though, it’s not paradise and the teachers get their share of headaches.
I AM COMEDIAN
Fumiari HYUGA
I am a ComedianFumiari HYUGADaisuke Muramoto (39) has been in the entertainment industry for 20 years. In 2013, he became the champion in one of the most prestigious comedy contests in Japan, rising to the top from a field of 1855 contestants. At the time he was flooded with offers, appearing on TV almost every day. However, because he repeatedly criticized politicians and made remarks about nuclear power plants and minority groups that are ostracized from society - topics that are regarded as taboos in the Japanese entertainment industry - in 7 years, Daisuke’s appearance on TV has plummeted to zero
mommy
Produced and Sales
In a certain prison cell in Japan, Masumi Hayashi, a 60-year-old woman, awaits the dreaded footsteps of the prison guard every morning at 8 am.
For her, the cessation of those footsteps means her execution day has arrived.
Convicted for her alleged involvement in the infamous "Wakayama Curry Poisoning Mass Murder Incident,"
occurred in 1998 mass poisoning during a community festival in Wakayama, Japan, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries from arsenic-laced curry,
Masumi maintains her innocence despite being condemned to death by the Supreme Court in 2009.
TOKYO KURDS
Produced and Sales
Legendary experimental filmmaker Junichi Okuyama is a pioneer of constructive cinema. He has been obsessed with the particular the beauty of analog films, especially small formats, whose potentials he has enjoyed exploring since debuting in 1964 with the 8mm exercise MU. Director,
and critique, for some 8 years Yu KANEKO followed Okuyama, observed him making and showing his films, and collected printedmaterials.
ORIGAMI
Tadasuke KOTANI
Atsushi Suwa, a realist painter, undertakes the work of drawing a portrait of a medical college student who victim of sudden death
RESONANCE
Produced and Sales
RESONANCE
Ryo KATAYAMA
Kazuya Mukae, a single man looking to put his past behind him, moves to work on a farm in the mountainous region of Katsuyama, Japan. He desires solace in simply growing the Mizuna green, a vegetable that grows deep in the snow–its taste known to be bitter, but sweet with harsher winters.
Cadence
Produced and Sales
Cadence
Ryo KATAYAMA
Mana, Sayuri, Mei put their all into their final drama competition in the cicada-roaring summer of their final year of high school. Misao wishes to stop time through the muse of the shamisen, a traditional string instrument. Ryuhei, a fisherman, finds himself needing to grow up to take over his father’s boat as the autumn leaves fall. Kazuya, an aspiring farmer, moves to a snow-covered mountain town to dig his fingers into the soil, only to find himself digging into his shameful past that he must overcome in order to become a part of the city. Connected by the time that flows in the air, four stories delve into the everyday indulgences of Fukui, Japan.
BOOK-PAPER-SCISSORS
book paper scissors
Nanako HIROSE
a 75 year old Japanese book designer Nobuyoshi Kikuchi has devoted his life to design over 15,000 books. The book designer’s job is not only to come up with the outstanding jacket of a book, but also to carefully choose the papers and the fonts, and layout them to create the unique physical book. Each design is inspired by the text in the books, and none of them are the same. Through the lens, we find not only the beauty of fabrication, but also the crisis of physical book’s existence. The director Nanako Hirose, who is an apprentice of Hirokazu Kore-eda, has filmed Mr. Kikuchi for over 3 years to make this film. Nanako hopes that the audience goes to a bookstore after watching this film, and touch and reconnect with books by his or her own hands. This is a film for all the book lovers out there in the world.