Happy Birthday!

A jaded Japanese woman becomes convinced that a satchel of money buried and lost in a fictional film, Fargo, is in fact, real. With a crudely drawn treasure map and limited preparation, she escapes her structured life in Tokyo and embarks on a foolhardy quest across the tundra of Minnesota in search of her mythical fortune.

At a firm specializing in creating audio descriptions for films to serve the visually impaired, a descriptive video transcriber comes to know one of the panel members who is a formerly successful photographer who has lost much of his eyesight. As the man loses his main mode of connecting with the world he also yields his other means away. The new acquaintanceship leads to man and woman coming to terms with their lives and professions and seeing the world in new ways.

After a long decade of total estrangement, grizzled Aunt Krisha shows up at her sister's home one fine Thanksgiving morning. Swearing she's got her act together now, Krisha is desperate to re-enter the family circle; however, wounded Krisha has deeply hurt people in the past. As a result, as her beloved ones greet her with a volatile mix of sympathy and wariness, right from the start, a corrosive undercurrent of silent discomfort permeates the multi-generational gathering. But Krisha is determined to let nothing stand in the way of reconciliation, so, without a second thought, she undertakes the crucial, risky task of cooking the turkey: her big chance to build a bridge. As heat caresses the turkey's crisp brown skin, wary glances and private conversations ratchet up the tension, and painful secrets come to light. Is the family's lost lamb ready to make up for lost time?

Sawa Yamagishi worked as a nursing-care helper. The family of an old man asked Sawa to sleep with him, which led her to eventually lose her job and house. Now, she has nowhere to go. Sawa finds elderly people in trouble and gets involved in their lives. Meeting them, their lives change and Sawa's own wounds start to heal.

Menashe, a widower, lives and works within the Hasidic community of Borough Park, Brooklyn. Since his wife passed away a year before, he has been trying hard to regain custody of his nine-year-old son, Rieven. But the rabbi (and all the community behind him) will not hear of it unless he re-marries, which Menashe does not want, his first marriage having been very unhappy. Father and son get on well together, but can Menashe take care of Rieven properly? Not really for all his goodwill as he holds down a low-paid job as a grocery clerk that consumes too much of his efforts and energy. Always late, always in a hurry, he endeavors to improve himself though. But will his efforts be enough to convince the rabbi that he can be a good father without a wife at home?

Would you choose your natural son, or the son you believed was yours after spending 6 years together? Kore-eda Hirokazu, the globally acclaimed director of "Nobody Knows", "Still Walking" and "I Wish", returns to the big screen with another family - a family thrown into torment after a phone call from the hospital where the son was born... Ryota has earned everything he has by his hard work, and believes nothing can stop him from pursuing his perfect life as a winner. Then one day, he and his wife, Midori, get an unexpected phone call from the hospital. Their 6-year-old son, Keita, is not 'their' son - the hospital gave them the wrong baby. Ryota is forced to make a life-changing decision, to choose between 'nature' and 'nurture.' Seeing Midori's devotion to Keita even after learning his origin, and communicating with the rough yet caring family that has raised his natural son for the last six years, Ryota also starts to question himself: has he really been a 'father' all these years...

The manager of a pancake stall finds himself confronted with an odd but sympathetic elderly woman looking for work. A taste of her homemade red bean paste convinces him to hire her, which starts a relationship that is about much more than just street food.

When a young woman unexpectedly arrives at her much-older former lover's workplace, looking for answers, the secrets of their dark past threaten to unravel his new life. What follows is an emotional and unflinching excavation of inappropriate love, with shattering consequences.

Yuma is a grown woman now with the obligations and duties that come with it. Nevermind that she went 37 seconds without breathing upon birth, which resulted in her developing and living with cerebral palsy. She is disabled. She is striving to perform under the duress while juggling an aspiration to become a manga artist. With the world using her, and the reality that comes with her disability, she embarks on a sexual exploration in order to understand the subject matter demanded of her by an employer.

The drama-comedy tells the story of Setsuko Kawashima (Terajima), a lonely, chain-smoking office lady in Tokyo who is past her prime. After deciding to take an English class, she discovers a new identity in her American alter ego, 'Lucy,' and falls for her instructor, John (Hartnett). When John suddenly disappears, Setsuko earnestly sets out on a quest to find him, eventually leading her to the outskirts of Southern California.

Halley lives with her six year old daughter Moonee in a budget motel along one of the commercial strips catering to the Walt Disney World tourist clientele outside Orlando, Florida. Halley, who survives largely on welfare, has little respect for people, especially those who cross her, it an attitude that she has passed down to Moonee, who curses and gives the finger like her mother. Although the motel's policy is not to allow long term rentals, Bobby, the motel manager, has made arrangements for people like Halley to live there while not undermining the policy as he realizes that many such tenants have no place to go otherwise. Halley, Moonee and Moonee's friends, who live in the motel or others like it along the strip and who she often drags into her disruptive pranks, are often the bane of Bobby's existence, but while dealing with whatever problem arises, Bobby has a soft spot especially for the children and thus, by association, their parents, as he knows that Moonee and others like her are just children acting like a children under whatever guidance they have, Moonee who has less guidance than most. Although there are some lines which he will not tolerate to be crossed, Bobby lets most of the disruptive things that they do go, largely as long as it does not affect the bread and butter of the motel, namely the tourist trade. The summer in this collective is presented, when Moonee and her friends, such as Scooty, are out of school and are left largely to their own devices while self-absorbed Halley does whatever she wants, often just staying in the room watching TV. Halley is supposed to look after Scooty, the son of Halley's friend Ashley, they who live in the unit immediately underneath Halley and Moonee's, while Ashley is at work at a local diner. In turn, Ashley pilfers cooked meals from the diner to feed Halley, Moonee and Scooty. Over the course of the summer, Halley systematically begins to alienate one by one the people who are her unofficial support by responding with that disrespect to anything she feels is against her. As such, Halley begins to take more and more extreme measures to maintain the life she leads with Moonee.

A Japanese couple stuck with part-time jobs and hence inadequate incomes avail themselves of the fruits of shoplifting to make ends meet. They are not alone in this behaviour. The younger and the older of the household are in on the act. The unusual routine is about to change from care-free and matter-of-fact to something more dramatic, however, as the couple open their doors to a beleaguered young girl. The reasons for the family's habit and their motivations come under the microscope.

After a 3-year stint in prison, an unreasonably optimistic middle-aged man returns to his stagnant neighborhood to win back his girlfriend only to find that she and his family have done what they always wanted to do - forget he exists.

Frenchwoman Joan is a world traveller and chronicler. She travels, sees, experience and writes. She lands in the forest and hills near Nara, Japan and meets Satoshi. Despite the mysterious aura and eccentric personality the woodsman finds a place in the visitor's heart.

A woman is torn between two men and two ways of life in this drama from writer and director Naomi Kawase. Kayoko (Hako Oshima) lives a serene existence in Asuka, a village where nature and civilization live in harmony, and she spends her days making scarves and dying them crimson using natural materials. Kayoko shares her home with her long-time boyfriend Tetsuya (Tetsuya Akikawa), who makes his living in the publishing industry and tends his garden in his spare time. While Tutsuya is away on business, Kayoko discovers she's pregnant, which presents her with a serious dilemma -- she's been having an affair with Takumi (Tohta Komizu), a wood sculptor who lives nearby and possesses an earthy sensuality Tatsuya does not. Koyoko is uncertain which man is the father of her child, and when she tells Takumi her secret, he suggests that as much as he cares for her, he's not certain theirs is a love that will last, with the troubled relationship between his grandfather and her grandmother serving as an example.

Dwelling on his past glory as a prize-winning author, Ryota (Hiroshi Abe) wastes the money he makes as a private detective on gambling and can barely pay child support. After the death of his father, his aging mother (Kirin Kiki) and beautiful ex-wife (Yoko Make) seem to be moving on with their lives. Renewing contact with his initially distrusting family, Ryota struggles to take back control of his existence and to find a lasting place in the life of his young son (Taiyo Yoshizawa) - until a stormy summer night offers them a chance to truly bond again.

Eli and Daniel, two Korean American brothers, own a struggling shoe store and have an unlikely friendship with Kamilla, a street wise 11-year-old African American girl. Kamilla ditches school, Eli stresses about the store, and Daniel tries to have a good time. It's just another typical day at the store until the Rodney King verdict is read and riots break out. With the chaos moving towards them, the trio is forced to defend the store while contemplating the future of their own personal dreams and the true meaning of family.

A young man in Japan cooks ramen in his dad's popular restaurant. When his dad dies and he sees a video on Singapore food on internet, he decides to visit the woman, who uploaded the video. His dead mom was from Singapore and he lived there till he was ten. He looks for his mom's brother, who still has a restaurant. They bond by cooking together. He learns to cook Chinese food and gets inspiration for the restaurant back home.