Louis Vuitton Hawaii International FIlm Festival 2008

A young boy in the Democratic Republic of Congo helps his handicapped once-famous father smuggle goods over the Congo-Rwanda border

'Wet Season' is a stop motion animation piece about the filmmaker, who is trying to make a short film about his late father.

The story is about nine high school friends, set during the time of the nationally tragic Taiwan baseball scandal. It follows Yen and Tang and their gang of baseball loving friends through the last year of their high school life. With one fatal misstep, they will learn how fragile life can be, how delicate their friendship really is and how much courage is needed to go on living in a world where everything seems phony and fake.

Risa Morimoto's evocative documentary boldly confronts the popular notion of the kamikaze as fanatical patriots. The film's genesis lies in the filmmaker's discovery that her own uncle was a kamikaze pilot. To understand his experience, Morimoto delves into the complex history of the kamikaze, a history long shrouded by secrecy and shame after Japan's defeat in World War II. Through interviews, their heartbreaking stories poignantly provide a window into a country's staggering desperation and the reprehensible detachment of leaders who saw it fit to sacrifice their country's future to stave off an inevitable present. Not all the young pilots faced their near-certain death with zeal. Caught in the cogs of a massive war machine, their options were few. And yet, even in the chaos and momentum of war, the pilots stumbled upon heart-wrenching moments of grace and humanity.

The session musicians of The Wrecking Crew were the unsung heroes of popular music. During the '60s, they played on hits for dozens of popular singers such as the Beach Boys, Phil Spector, the Monkees, Sonny & Cher, the Mamas and the Papas, and Frank and Nancy Sinatra. These musicians performed on thousands of records, film and television soundtracks that defined popular culture in the swinging '60s. They provided that unquantifiable magic that sent songs to the top of the Billboard charts. And yet, as hard as they worked, their names were completely unknown - until now. THE WRECKING CREW features interviews with the surviving members of the group as well as American music icons such as Dick Clark, Brian Wilson, Cher, Nancy Sinatra and Micky Dolenz. - Jason Soeda

Tommy, a "local boy" from Hawaii, and Mike, a Texan, separately ride the busiest subway route in Tokyo, the Yamanote Line, in search of someone.

An animation piece utilizing yellow sticky notes, as the filmmaker reflects on world events from the last 9 years, that occurred during his preoccupation of his own life's journey.