Kenji Onishi

A behind the scenes documentary of Kenji Onishi's never completed 35mm feature film "Shiroyasha", shot between 2002 and 2004.

Blue Max (1997) shows a woman looking out of a window, but also working with extreme close-ups: The street, her neck, the window, her knees, the floor and her toes, brought together by the sound of a passing train. Her ears, her mouth, the wall and the door. The sparkling glass of a window and the young woman on top of a naked young man and later the shadows on the wall of both of them. A telephone is ringing and the clouds in the blue sky are travelling by while it all turns into a rape. And the calmness of both of them is quite irritating when they later watch TV together. (www.desistfilm.com)

VIDA, starring AV actress Hotaru Hazuki, is an erotic work aiming directly at the Hypothalamus. DEATH is an event that makes life emerge in a different language. The film was entirely self-developed at home

A woman spends her days with a sadistic man and decadent eyes. The man, with eyes drowning in drugs, constantly demands abnormal sexual acts from the woman. Eventually, after the man commits murder, the woman tries to escape this wrong way of life. The film depicts a world adorned with sex and violence. In the corners of the city, an exclusive individual builds their own colony. Imperfect human relationships, born from incomplete communication, unfold under the slow passage of time. The shadow-based imagery envelops the entire film more than necessary, in order to highlight the dark side of the human heart.

No synopsis available yet.

The man was seeking pleasure beyond sex. And the ultimate ecstasy he sought was pace poles and the death throes of a person. The man drags his friend Shinichi and his girlfriend Akiko into his world of madness, gradually corrupting their relationship and manipulating them. Then, he murders Shinichi in front of Akiko. Akiko's mind and body collapse from the shock, and the man toys with her for his own pleasure. However, Akiko's mind gradually becomes abnormal, and she enters a world where madness can be sanity.

An ordinary, everyday scene is transported to the scene of a bizarre, gruesome murder. An unreal world infiltrates the corners of everyday life. That eye, that man, kidnapped a woman, imprisoned and restrained her, assaulted and murdered her, and dismembered her body. But for the man, it was nothing more than an ordinary, unremarkable moment.

Kenji Murakami seeks out legendary wildman director Kenji Onishi and arranges a meeting with director Yoko Oguchi. The meeting turns unexpectedly intense...

A woman spends her days with a sadistic man and decadent eyes. The man, with eyes drowning in drugs, constantly demands abnormal sexual acts from the woman. Eventually, after the man commits murder, the woman tries to escape this wrong way of life.. The film depicts a world adorned with sex and violence. In the corners of the city, an exclusive individual builds their own colony. Imperfect human relationships, born from incomplete communication, unfold under the slow passage of time. The shadow-based imagery envelops the entire film more than necessary, in order to highlight the dark side of the human heart.

The man was seeking pleasure beyond sex. And the ultimate ecstasy he sought was pace poles and the death throes of a person. The man drags his friend Shinichi and his girlfriend Akiko into his world of madness, gradually corrupting their relationship and manipulating them. Then, he murders Shinichi in front of Akiko. Akiko's mind and body collapse from the shock, and the man toys with her for his own pleasure. However, Akiko's mind gradually becomes abnormal, and she enters a world where madness can be sanity.

A man fingering the girl before killing her. Camera cuts to blue sky and cat. A man choking his girl. Onishi at his usual with framing, extreme close-ups, expectations and black inserts.

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Experimental film by Minai Kyoko.

A very rare, Super 8 film by Fujiwara Sho (pen name Fujiwara Dragon), that was screened only one time. Some scenes were later reused in one of Kenji Onishi versions of Edge Cutters and altered. There were many versions of Edge Cutters and Kenji Onishi altered them for different screenings.

Focusing on a woman addicted to sex and drugs in a corner of the city, this film depicts an exclusive and cold world on a monochrome screen. Attempting to fuse experimental film and dramatic film, this work exposes raw violence and eliminates explanatory expressions. It depicts the weight of the distance between a man and a woman that deepens after a small incident.

An ordinary, everyday scene is transported to the scene of a bizarre, gruesome murder. An unreal world infiltrates the corners of everyday life. That eye, that man, kidnapped a woman, imprisoned and restrained her, assaulted and murdered her, and dismembered her body. But for the man, it was nothing more than an ordinary, unremarkable moment.

Nakagawa shot “Coming Future” on the nights of December 24 and 25, 2009, in Shibuya, making it his location for an idealized Bohemia in the heart of Tokyo. Interesting interviews/discussions with Kenji Murakami, Nobuhiro Yamashita, Kenji Onishi, Tetsuaki Matsue and more... By far the most interesting sequence is with Kenji Onishi (“A Burning Star”). Wielding a super-8 camera, Onishi documents his own interview, taking random shots of street-life and buildings. He leavens his monologue with statements bordering between cliché and outré. “A movie that aims to make a message is boring.”

Focusing on a woman addicted to sex and drugs in a corner of the city, this film depicts an exclusive and cold world on a monochrome screen. Attempting to fuse experimental film and dramatic film, this work exposes raw violence and eliminates explanatory expressions. It depicts the weight of the distance between a man and a woman that deepens after a small incident.

With a curious eye, he saw a UFO passing over the neighbor's roof, and strange things began to happen around him. The taste of the tap water changed, his clock kept getting wrong, his lover's behavior was strange, acquaintances and friends were acting oddly, and people in town started giving him strange looks. There must be something going on, he thought, and he became paranoid about the events happening unseen. Had the stress built up inside him diminished his ability to distinguish between fantasy and reality?

Experimental film by Kenji Onishi.

Yasuda Satoru, 8mm. Singing, children, sea, mountains, travel, friends. Archive and diary like footage repeated and distorted multiple times - in the end it became like a "ghost diary". R-1/3~3/3

Experimental short by Kenichi Kataoka.

This is a film about a medium approaching extinction, an 8mm documentary film about a vanishing 8mm cinema. Blending two genres, the science film and the personal film, and benefiting from the participation of multiple generations of cineastes, it is a reflection upon the original cinematic experience.

‎The film heritage of Yukiyasu Shimada.

A behind the scenes documentary of Kenji Onishi's never completed 35mm feature film "Shiroyasha", shot between 2002 and 2004.

A girl and a boy, a chance encounter with the camera. She invites the photographer to her room. Once inside, the woman takes off her clothers and provokes the man. An unblemished composition of umblemished eroticism. Kenji Onishi's entry in the "Roji no ko" series.

The Air-Conditioning System (1997) introduces us to a young man in his flat, and the ways of communication with his girlfriend. The sky is blue and skirts are put on the balcony for drying. The wind will carry everything away, just like the noise and music or the porn we watch with him later on TV (he prefers to look at western blonde women). What will happen when the young woman in her flat will have found out soon that he is looking at her (and listening to her) via the air-conditioning system?

Experimental short by Kenji Onishi.

Production and sale of Fujichrome RT200 sound film stock ended in 1999. It was the ultimate analogue technology allowing audio to be simultaneously recorded. As the director develops his film shot with expired RT200 stock, unique visuals and sounds begin to emerge.

Blue Max (1997) shows a woman looking out of a window, but also working with extreme close-ups: The street, her neck, the window, her knees, the floor and her toes, brought together by the sound of a passing train. Her ears, her mouth, the wall and the door. The sparkling glass of a window and the young woman on top of a naked young man and later the shadows on the wall of both of them. A telephone is ringing and the clouds in the blue sky are travelling by while it all turns into a rape. And the calmness of both of them is quite irritating when they later watch TV together. (www.desistfilm.com)

An improvised film study starring Kumiko Watanuki's solo play in an empty room.

No synopsis available yet.

A girl named Fuchyako (Kumagai Fusako) is smoking a cigarette and singing to the background music of a blues song. Waterdrops.

An 8mm film drama. Written by Fusako Kumagai and directed by Kenji Onishi.

An 8mm film drama. Written by Fusako Kumagai and directed by Kenji Onishi.

Experimental short by Kenji Onishi.

8mm film portrait of Fusako Kumagai.

Experimental short by Kenji Onishi.

Silent art film utilizing landscape and light.

A colourful video feature about young criminals, sex scenes and their bitter ends.

A white glowing spirit shifts around darkness, distorted and breaking.

VIDA, starring AV actress Hotaru Hazuki, is an erotic work aiming directly at the Hypothalamus. DEATH is an event that makes life emerge in a different language. The film was entirely self-developed at home

Kenji Onishi’s 16mm independent road movie. Kazu and his girlfriend, Fusako, haven't been getting along lately. In Kazu's room, his friend suddenly dies of a heart attack. Desperate to do something, Kazu stuffs the body into the trunk of his car. Kazu suggests to Fusako that they take a trip to Hokkaido. Fusako wasn't very enthusiastic, but in the end, she's dragged along.

White and grey, a big screen with noises and voices: we hear a man suffering. The film follows the hardscrabble day-to-day exploits of a nameless hero as he is trying to survive amidst violent, desperate men and desolate landscapes. Later we will watch them all again building a metal construction out in the desert. So these men here will find an Asian guy, almost dead: “You have got a point!” The Promised Land? No, and it is someone else who will die in the end. Or will simply end up in hallucinations.

A Burning Star depicts the physicality of destruction and disappearance through images of the Japanese filmmaker's father who dies and is cremated. Maintaining a solid rhythm and perspective, this film highlights the meaning and importance of "viewing" and "filming" in documentary.

Everyday events illuminated by the summer sun, seemingly insignificant observations, are brought to life by an 8mm camera. The changing sky, the trajectory of the sun, captured using stop-motion; the camera is a machine that collects light as if cutting out the air itself.

Digital Video, Kanahama Natsuyo model.

Experimental short by Kenji Onishi.