A global war begins in 1940. This war drags out over many decades until the remaining people have no recollection of who started it or why. Nothing is being manufactured any more and society has broken down into primitive localized communities. In 1966 a great plague wipes out most of those still left, but one day a strange aircraft lands at one of these communities and its pilot tells of an organisation which is rebuilding civilization. Immense reconstruction takes place over the next few decad find out more...

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs might be Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse's finest hour, a delicate, devastating study of a woman, Keiko, played heartbreakingly by Hideko Takamine, who works as a bar hostess in Tokyo's very modern post-war Ginza district. Sly, resourceful, but trapped, Keiko comes to embody the conflicts and struggles of a woman trying to establish her independence in a male-dominated society. A profoundly moving masterpiece. find out more...