Ito - Diary of an Urban Priest

Showing at the Hot Docs Film Festival: Ito – Diary of an Urban Priest, directed by Pirjo Honkasalo

Synopsis from the Hot Docs website:

From the director of the award-winning The 3 Rooms of Melancholia, this visually stunning piece follows the intimate journey of Yoshinobu Fujioka, a young, guitar-playing former boxer turned Buddhist priest on his fervent search for meaning among the disenchanted and troubled denizens of Tokyo. The film subtly evokes Fujioka’s quest through a series of hypnotic conversations he has with various confessors, bar patrons, and religious colleagues: a convicted killer at a women’s penitentiary, his former boxing coach, and a man who lost his faith after the death of his mother, to name a few. Fujioka is earnest and open during these encounters; his longing for personal connection is tangible. Dark and expressive, Ito is as mesmerizing as it is emotionally compelling. - Shannon Abel

Netflix It: Lost in Translation

#19 - Lost in Translation

Available on Netflix: Lost in Translation, written and directed by Sofia Coppola

One of the (very, very) few woman-directed movies ever nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture! Sofia Coppola did pick up an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Synopsis from AllMovie.com:

After making a striking directorial debut with her screen adaptation of The Virgin Suicides, Sofia Coppola offers a story of love and friendship blooming under unlikely circumstances in this comedy drama. Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is a well-known American actor whose career has gone into a tailspin; needing work, he takes a very large fee to appear in a commercial for Japanese whiskey to be shot in Tokyo. Feeling no small degree of culture shock in Japan, Bob spends most of his non-working hours at his hotel, where he meets Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) at the bar. Twentysomething Charlotte is married to John (Giovanni Ribisi), a successful photographer who is in Tokyo on an assignment, leaving her to while away her time while he works. Beyond their shared bemusement and confusion with the sights and sounds of contemporary Tokyo, Bob and Charlotte share a similar dissatisfaction with their lives; the spark has gone out of Bob's marriage, and he's become disillusioned with his career. Meanwhile, Charlotte is puzzled with how much John has changed in their two years of marriage, while she's been unable to launch a creative career of her own. Bob and Charlotte become fast friends, and as they explore Tokyo, they begin to wonder if their sudden friendship might be growing into something more.

The film's website is here.