Iwanami Productions

Documentary short.

As her husband Eiichi becomes more entangled in his life as businessman, Naoko looks for ways to expand her own life even as her husband's life shrinks in scope and intimacy. She finds new interests, new love, and a greater sense of her place in the world.

TV documentary about the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and its safety concerns in 1976.

A young delinquent takes part in a robbery and is sentenced to a juvenile detention center, where he clashes with other youths and reflects on his life experiences.

A short documentary about the behaviour of Japanese primary school students.

One day, Kandume's can boy, who happily lived with his friends in the kitchen, becomes an empty can and is discarded. Eventually, he has a dream about the history of iron and humanity. He sees how iron that melted and flowed out during a forest fire was discovered by humans once it cooled and solidified. This iron then transformed into knives and machines, leading to the development of civilization. When the can boy awakens, he is taken to a steelworks and reborn as a new steel material.

A teaching film for social studies, which was developed as a new educational subject in 1947. At an elementary school in Hokkaido, children have started a fly extermination campaign to improve school hygiene. In order to eliminate the causes of flies, the entire town is working to improve the sanitary environment. The short was filmed with the cooperation of Mizukaido Elementary School in Joso City and is the first film in the "Social Studies Teaching Film System" by Iwanami Film Productions.

Shot in a retirement home over a period of two years, this film raises the question of "how to take care". The director films with great tenderness, not only the daily life of patients with senile dementia, but also the work of caregivers. Widely broadcast, the film sparked lively debate on the care and support society in Japan.

A college graduate falls in love with a woman during a business trip in Hokkaido

This engaging documentary focuses on a group of ‘studying mothers’ who decide to involve themselves in the civic politics of a provincial town, Kunitachi.

Marine biological documentary

Children Who Draw explores the delicate chemistry of school children interacting in an art class through a constant juxtaposition of observational black-and-white portraits of the young children with lyrical passages shot in vivid color exploring their imaginative and expressive paintings. Experimenting with color as an intimate expression of the children’s inner worlds, a tool for deeper psychological investigation, Hani allows his camera to roam freely across the drawings, “de-framing’” and enagaging the artwork in a manner reminiscent of Alain Resnais.