After the atomic obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, over 36,000 Australian men and women, part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), marched onto Japanese soil. They were assigned the toughest and most dangerous area of Japan: Hiroshima Prefecture, which included the atom-bombed city. The Forgotten Force tells for the first time the story of Australia's role in Japan. Rare archival and private footage, photographs and eyewitness...

Episode Seven “A World Without War" March 1945-September 1945 In spring 1945, although the numbers of dead and wounded have more than doubled since D-Day, the people of Mobile, Sacramento, Waterbury and Luverne understand all too well that there will be more bad news from the battlefield before the war can end. That March, when Americans go to the movies, President Franklin Roosevelt warns them in a newsreel that although the Nazis are on the verge...

The Japanese version goes beyond the stereotypical images of Japan that are too often presented to Americans, and asks the questions: What happens to Western cultural ideas and objects when they are placed in a new setting? How have the Japanese navigated the flood of foreign influences that has been inundating their culture for a thousand years? With its series of entertaining yet revealing sequences, The Japanese Version is truly a cross-cultural...

In the debut directorial feature by actor Joe Odagiri, the film follows an old ferryman in a remote Meiji-era community. His life is a peaceful, cyclical existence, given meaning by the essential role he plays in transporting people, livestock and goods across the water, connecting villages and lives. When news arrives that a bridge is being built, it's clear that his services will no longer be needed. Meanwhile, his life will be equally transformed...

Teacher Choi Young-Jae thinks that children only like going to school if they know it's going to be interesting. His aim is to make school irresistible to them. Choi's teaching techniques, in a middle-class elementary school outside of Seoul, are regarded as radical in an education system where traditionally lessons are formal and students are under pressure from a young age to perform well scholastically. However, because classes are so large, teachers...

After a long and unsuccessful struggle to get pregnant, Satoko and her husband decide to adopt a child. Over the next six years, the middle-class couple and their young son Asato settle into a comfortable, albeit routine, life. The family's orderly existence is shattered by the arrival of Hikari, a young woman claiming to be Asato's biological mother, demanding his return. As tensions mount, Satoko grows more and more emboldened to defend her family....

Terrier Max is coping with some major life changes. His owner is now married and has a toddler, Liam. Max is so worried about protecting the boy that he develops a nervous tic. On a family trip to a farm, Max and Duke encounter many creatures who elevates Max₂s anxiety. Luckily, Max gets some guidance from veteran farm dog Rooster, who pushes Max to ditch his neuroses, find his inner alpha, and give Liam a little more freedom. Can Max and the gang...

By the late summer of 1939, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is halfway through his second term in office. Both he and Eleanor are tired and looking forward to retirement, but when Germany invades Poland on September 2, 1939, everything changes. Although the United States is poorly prepared for conflict, and a majority of his countrymen resist involvement, the President is determined to help the Allies by building up the army and bolstering the production...

After moving to the country to be near their ailing mother, two young sisters are befriended by a variety of mysterious creatures.

Sixty-one years ago, the United States and Japanese armies met on Iwo Jima. Decades later, hundreds of letters are unearthed from that stark island's soil. The letters give faces and voices to the men who fought there, as well as the extraordinary general who led them. Leading the defense is Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi. With little defense other than sheer will and the volcanic rock of the island itself, Gen. Kuribayashi's unprecedented tactics...