Still the WaterMovies like Still the Water
- Key Features:
- Coming-of-age, Terminal illness, Absent parent, First love, Grief, Family drama, Self-discovery, Japanese culture, Island setting
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, poetic
- Target Audience:
- Drama enthusiasts, International cinema, Contemplative viewers
- Emotional Arc:
- ['Longing → Acceptance']
Still the Water

On the Japanese island of Amami, despite lacking parental guidance, Kaito and his girlfriend Kyoko try to find their place in the world. While Kaito suffers from the absence of his father, who moved to Tokyo after his birth, Kyoko must come to grips with her mother’s terminal illness.
Still the Water
At Kichijōji Station, Tokyo, Taku Morisaki glimpses a familiar woman on the platform opposite boarding a train. Later, her photo falls from a shelf as he exits his apartment before flying to Kōchi Prefecture. Picking it up, he looks at it briefly before leaving. As the aeroplane takes off, he narrates the events that brought her into his life...

A tragedy strikes a young woman's life without warning or reason. She continues living while searching for meaning in a lonely world.

With only a year left to live, 17-year-old Akito finds new meaning in life by bringing joy to a terminally ill girl who has just six months remaining.

Twenty-year-old Matsuri Takabayashi learns that she only has ten years to live due to an incurable disease. She decides to not dwell on her life and not to fall in love—until she meets a man named Kazuto Manabe at a school reunion.

In Japan's Aokigahara Forest, a troubled teacher meets a mysterious lost stranger who takes him on a life-changing journey of love and redemption.

Taeko and her husband, Jirō, are living a peaceful existence with her young son, Keita, when a tragic accident brings the boy's long-lost father, Park, back into her life. To cope with the pain and guilt, Taeko throws herself into helping this deaf and homeless man.

A strict, but caring mother has an awakening when she is told she has cancer and it is terminal. She has a few months. She needs to complete her tasks in that short time frame.

Natsume Mochizuki works as a teen model in Tokyo, but she learns that she has to move to her father's hometown of Ukigumo. She is in a desperate situation because she can't do the things she wants to do in Ukigumo. One day, she meets Koichiro Hasegawa. He is the successor of the Hasegawa family. His family is wealthy and is respected in the area. Natsume Mochizuki and Koichiro Hasegawa become attracted to each other, but something changes their fate.

While the Second World War rages, the teenage Mahito, haunted by his mother's tragic death, is relocated from Tokyo to the serene rural home of his new stepmother Natsuko, a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the boy's mother. As he tries to adjust, this strange new world grows even stranger following the appearance of a persistent gray heron, who perplexes and bedevils Mahito, dubbing him the "long-awaited one."

After two teenagers from abusive households befriend each other, their lives take a dark adventure into existentialism, despair, and human frailty.

Sugihara, a Japanese-born, third-generation Korean teenager struggles to find a place in a society that will not accept him.

Abandoned after coming out, Shun befriends Mio just before he has to move. Years later, Mio returns with a confession. How will Shun feel?

A family gathers together for a commemorative ritual whose nature only gradually becomes clear.

A small, lone Kappa miraculously survives over 200 years into modern day Japan, when he is found by young Koichi. Coo, who is secretly adopted by Koichi's family, searches with his new human friend for unpopulated places in hopes of finding any remaining of his kind.

A young Japanese woman named Yoko finds her cautious and insular nature tested when she travels to Uzbekistan to shoot the latest episode of her travel variety show.

A woman in the midst of an unpleasant divorce moves to an eerie apartment building with her young daughter. The ceiling of their apartment has a dark and active leak.

A family of four are the sole inhabitants of a small island, where they struggle each day to irrigate their crops.

After meeting one day, a shy boy who expresses himself through haiku and a bubbly but self-conscious girl share a brief, magical summer.

Arata Kaizaki, a jobless adult, undergoes an experiment that makes him 10 years younger. He goes back to high school and falls in love with Chizuru Hishiro, who is more than she seems.

Hiroko attends the memorial service of her fiancé, Itsuki Fujii, who died in a mountain-climbing incident. Although Itsuki's mother says that their old house is gone, Hiroko records the address listed under his name in his yearbook and sends him a letter. Surprisingly, she receives a reply, and discovers it came from his old classmate, a girl who also happens to be called Itsuki Fujii.

The elderly Shukishi and his wife, Tomi, take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son, Koichi, a doctor, and their daughter, Shige, a hairdresser, don't have much time to spend with their aged parents, and so it falls to Noriko, the widow of their younger son who was killed in the war, to keep her in-laws company.

Ruka is a young girl whose parents are separated and whose father works in an aquarium. When two boys, Umi and Sora, who were raised in the sea by dugongs, are brought to the aquarium, Ruka feels drawn to them and begins to realize that she has the same sort of supernatural connection to the ocean that they do. Umi and Sora's special power seems to be connected to strange events that have been occurring more and more frequently, such as the appearance of sea creatures far from their home territory and the disappearance of aquarium animals around the world. However, the exact nature of the boys' power and of the abnormal events is unknown, and Ruka gets drawn into investigating the mystery that surrounds her new friends.

In the aftermath of the most devastating conflict mankind had ever experienced, the tiny island of Shikotan became part of the Sakhalin Oblast... and on the unhealed border in this remote corner of the world, friendship among children from two different countries timidly blossomed, striving to overcome language barriers and the waves of history. Inspired by true events.

After suffering through a long and unsuccessful series of fertility treatments, Satoko and her husband Kiyokazu make the decision to adopt a child. Six years after adopting a boy they named Asato, Satoko has quit her job to concentrate fully on her husband and son. The family lives a peaceful existence until the arrival of a stranger.

In a small fishing village, a gloomy middle school student named Kai meets a mermaid named Lu.

A married Japanese forester during WWII is sent to Indochina to manage forests. He meets a young Japanese typist and promises to leave his wife. He doesn't and after the war, she turns up and the affair resumes.

On a cold Monday morning, a group of counselors clock in at an old-fashioned social services office. Their task is to interview the recently deceased, record their personal details, then, over the course of the week, assist them in choosing a single memory to keep for eternity.

Akira Tachibana is a soft-spoken high school student who used to be a part of the track and field club. Working part-time at a restaurant, she finds herself inexplicably falling in love with her manager, a divorced 45-year-old man.

In lyrical switches between the present and the past, Taeko contemplates the arc of her life, and wonders if she has been true to the dreams of her childhood self.

Mizuki's husband Yusuke has been missing for three years. He suddenly comes back home as a ghost and asks Mizuki to go on a trip with him. Their trip consists of visiting the people that helped Yusuke on his previous travel.

On a fishing boat at sea, a 60-year old man has been raising a girl since she was a child. It is agreed that they will get married on her 17th birthday. They live a quiet and secluded life, renting the boat to day fishermen and practicing strange divination rites. Their life changes when a teenage student comes aboard.

Takumi and his six-year-old son, Yuji, haven't come to terms with their wife and mother's death. One day, they meet a woman with an uncanny resemblance to her sheltering from the rain near their home.

Two high school students become stranded on a tropical island and must rely on each other for survival. They learn more about themselves and each other while falling in love.

A teen-age girl and her father come to an island on Hawaii, they find a closer relationship to each other and think about changing the island. During her adventures, Sydney finds friends, a new hobby with her fantastic photography, and the truth about her mother.

Shin has shut his heart ever since his mother died when he was young. His childhood friend Kotori has been looking after him ever since. Now that they are in the third year of high school, and it seems like they can finally move forward, another Shin from another Japan has suddenly appeared in front of them.

A lonely beach on the southernmost coast of Brazil is the scene for two friends, on the brink of adulthood, to explore their understanding of themselves and one another. Martin has been sent by his father to retrieve what appears to be an inheritance-related document from the family of his recently deceased and estranged grandfather. Tomaz accompanies him, seemingly hoping to regain some of their former closeness. The two boys shelter themselves in a glass house, in front of a cold and stormy sea.

Takao, who is training to become a shoemaker, skipped school and is sketching shoes in a Japanese-style garden. He meets a mysterious woman, Yukino, who is older than him. Then, without arranging the times, the two start to see each other again and again, but only on rainy days. They deepen their relationship and open up to each other. But the end of the rainy season soon approaches.

With dreams of diving abroad, Tsuneo gets a job assisting Josee, an artist whose imagination takes her far beyond her wheelchair. But when the tide turns against them, they push each other to places they never thought possible, and inspire a love fit for a storybook.

Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool's synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.

Just when Lola, 18 years old and transgender, learns that she can finally have surgery, her mother, who is her only financial support, passes away. Abiding by her mother’s last wishes, Lola and her father, who are permanently in conflict and have not seen each other for two years, undertake a journey all the way to the Belgian coast. They realize the outcome of the journey may not be the one they were both expecting...

A year after losing her mother, a young girl learns that she must journey across Japan to the annual gathering of gods in the sacred land of Izumo.

Hinako is a surf-loving college student who has just moved to a small seaside town. When a sudden fire breaks out at her apartment building, she is rescued by Minato, a handsome firefighter, and the two soon fall in love.

Suzume, 17, lost her mother as a little girl. On her way to school, she meets a mysterious young man. But her curiosity unleashes a calamity that endangers the entire population of Japan, and so Suzume embarks on a journey to set things right.

Asako lives in Osaka. She falls in love with Baku, a free-spirit. One day, Baku suddenly disappears. Two years later, Asako now lives in Tokyo and meets Ryohei. He looks just like Baku, but has a completely different personality.

Haruki secretly had feelings for Akihiko for years, but Akihiko was still in a relationship with his roommate, the violinist Ugetsu Murata. Haruki, Akihiko, and Ugetsu's love clashes and starts to move forward.

While searching for his fiancee Ritsuko, Sakutarou rediscovers through flashbacks the void deep within him caused by the events from his high school days.

A down-and-out businessman travels to a seaside town, where he meets a woman with unusual sexual powers.

Two outsiders, both shaped by the circumstances that have brought them together, forge a deep and lasting love.

A university student attends a Japanese tea ceremony near her house with her cousin. There she has the Japanese tea ceremony in her life and it's there for her during moments when she is sad or happy.

On the third anniversary of a cult's failed chemical attack on Tokyo and their subsequent mass suicide, family members of those affected gather at the cult's former base on the shores of a lake to observe the anniversary of their loved ones' deaths.

Takada, a Japanese fisherman has been estranged from his son for many years, but when the son is diagnosed with terminal cancer his daughter-in-law, Rie, summons him to the hospital. Through a series of obstacles and relationships, he is brought unexpectedly closer to both an understanding of himself and of his son.

The film centers on Asuna, a young girl who spends her solitary days listening to the mysterious music emanating from the crystal radio she received from her late father as a memento. One day while walking home she is attacked by a fearsome monster and saved by a mysterious boy named Shun. However, Shun disappears and Asuna embarks on a journey of adventure to the land of Agartha with her teacher Mr. Morisaki to meet a Shun again. Through her journey she comes to know the cruelty and beauty of the world, as well as loss.

With his wife Elizabeth on life support after a boating accident, Hawaiian land baron Matt King takes his daughters on a trip from Oahu to Kauai to confront a young real estate broker, who was having an affair with Elizabeth before her misfortune.

Donato fails in his attempt to save a drowning man, and meets one of the man's friends. He decides to start his life over, but pieces of his past keep coming after him.

Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer, he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

Hoping to save his sick mother, a boy named Gunner and his friend Jo venture into the remote Wild Horse forest to search for a mythical figure who possesses the secret to immortality. When they go missing, Gunner's father Amos must immerse himself in his son's world to find them.

Offering a caustic immersion into the lives of disaffected junior high students on the cusp of adulthood, the film takes place over the 5-day period before, during, and after a ferocious, seemingly liberating typhoon, which six of the students endure while marooned in their school.

In the town of Saima, when summer is about to begin, a group of six high school students intend to live a secret adventure by spending seven carefree days in a ruined mining facility.

A factory explosion plunges a small town into a timeless freeze, leaving teenage Masamune and his pals to grapple with a quickly collapsing reality.

Amateur photographer Makoto and the homely but endearing Shizuru meet during their university entrance ceremony and become instant friends. Shy by nature, Makoto finds himself opening up around Shizuru, who is secretly in love with him.

A dying girl meets a nonchalant boy who found out her secret. She decided to fulfill her bucket list with none-other-than the boy who couldn't care less about the world.

Twenty-six-year-old Hiroto Suwa; his wife, Naho; and their old high school classmates—Takako Chino, Azusa Murasaka, and Saku Hagita—visit Mt. Koubou to view the cherry blossoms together. While watching the setting sun, they reminisce about Kakeru Naruse, their friend who died 10 years ago. Mourning for him, they decide to visit Kakeru's old home, where they learn the secret of his death from his grandmother.

A young man abandons his family for a solitary life of fly-fishing. His goal was to find his own way in the fishing world and thereby find himself and love.

Moshimo, Japan. The annual fireworks festival is about to take place and a group of schoolboys, arguing over whether they are round or flat when viewed from different angles, set out to find it out.

Three moments in Takaki's life: his relationship with Akari and their forced separation; his friendship with Kanae, who is secretly in love with him; the demands and disappointments of adulthood, an unhappy life in a cold city.

Shigematsu Shizuma, who lives with his family in a village near Fukuyama, was in Hiroshima with his wife and niece just after the devastating atomic bombing, a tragedy that cruelly took the lives of thousands of people and forever marked the harsh existence of the survivors.

Waverly thought she had her future figured out: she’d start her medical residency in Toronto after a summer visit to her parents in Taipei. When her plans suddenly change, she makes an impulsive detour to a small Canadian town where she meets local lifeguard Blake. After he saves her from nearly drowning at a beach party, Blake offers to teach Waverly to swim, and as the lessons continue, the two unexpectedly find themselves falling in love.

After her werewolf lover unexpectedly dies in an accident, a woman must find a way to raise the son and daughter that she had with him. However, their inheritance of their father's traits prove to be a challenge for her.

In the final months of World War II, 14-year-old Seita and his sister Setsuko are orphaned when their mother is killed during an air raid in Kobe, Japan. After a falling out with their aunt, they move into an abandoned bomb shelter. With no surviving relatives and their emergency rations depleted, Seita and Setsuko struggle to survive.

The idyllic and secluded Finnish archipelago. The pandemic soars across the world. Elli’s world trembles as her husband’s old friend arrives at the island.

Plagued by a seemingly endless stream of haunting dreams, Tomoya drifts through life with an almost overwhelming sense of anger and emptiness. Then, one fateful day, he meets the mysterious and beautiful Nagisa, and his world begins to change. While helping Nagisa revive the defunct Drama Club at their high school, Tomoya discovers that she has the same dreams. Their story starts beneath the cherry blossoms, but where will fate lead them?

An American woman is stranded in Tokyo after breaking up with her boyfriend. Searching for direction in life, she trains to be a ramen chef under a tyrannical Japanese master.

Two small children and a ship's cook survive a shipwreck and find safety on an idyllic tropical island. Soon, however, the cook dies and the young boy and girl are left on their own. Days become years and Emmeline and Richard make a home for themselves surrounded by exotic creatures and nature's beauty. But will they ever see civilization again?

A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.

When madly in love high school graduates Riley and Chris are separated by a tragic car accident, Riley blames herself for her boyfriend's death while Chris is stranded in limbo. Miraculously, the two find a way to connect. In a love story that transcends life and death, both Riley and Chris are forced to learn the hardest lesson of all: letting go.

A disillusioned filmmaker has an encounter with a young woman who has a ritual of repeating "Tomorrow is my birthday" everyday. He tries to communicate with her through his video camera.

Violet Evergarden comes to a private women's academy to tutor Isabella in the ways of being a lady. Heir to the York family, Isabella feels trapped in this new and uncomfortable world. She still grieves for the only person to ever bring her happiness – now lost to her. Violet's lessons do give her a brief respite from the melancholy but with the absence of joy, how long does it take to truly heal?

A pair of teenagers in Western Australia looking to escape the monotony of life in a small town take up surfing lessons from a guy named Sando.

Because of her past, 17-year-old Rio lives her days filling the emptiness in her heart with money—until one day, she meets a university professor named Kouki and falls in love.

Ai, a self-reliant girl who moves to Animal Village and works at Nook's Cranny, gradually becomes part of the community with guidance from its residents and embarks on a quest to plant pine trees for a Winter Festival miracle after finding a message in a bottle.

While everyone thinks that Momo is a wild party girl, the reality is that she is shy and lonely. Can Momo confess her love to her classmate, Toji, or will her best friend Sae steal him away? It's a bittersweet drama of growing up and fitting in.

Mika is a fresh high school student who starts texting a mysterious boy. She is shocked when he reveals who he is - Hiro, a delinquent attending her school. What she doesn't know is that Hiro isn't as bad as he seems.

Two sisters find out the existence of their long-lost mother, but the younger cannot accept the fact that she was abandoned as a child.

Humanity is about to come to an end due to a mysterious signal; trapped at the home of a dead friend, Aubrey tries to turn things around after finding a mysterious cassette tape.

A Hawaiian teenage surfer shows off his skills when he takes to the snow slopes in Vermont.

In a poor district of Edo lives a young samurai named Soza. He has been sent by his clan to avenge the death of his father. He isn't an accomplished swordsman however, and he prefers sharing the life of the residents, teaching the kids how to write etc. When he finally finds the man he is looking for, he will have to decide whether he follows the way of the samurai or chooses peace and reconciliation.

In an abandoned Tokyo overrun by bubbles and gravitational abnormalities, one gifted young man has a fateful meeting with a mysterious girl.

As an unexpected typhoon bears down on a small tropical island, a group of students trapped at school find themselves forced to put aside their personal issues and work together. Not only to save themselves, but possibly the lives of everyone on the planet!

High school student Aoi Aioi lives with her elder sister, Akane, after a tragic accident took their parents away 13 years ago. Because Akane has since been taking care of her single-handedly, Aoi wants to move to Tokyo after her graduation to relieve her sister's burden and pursue a musical career, inspired by Akane's ex-boyfriend Shinnosuke "Shinno" Kanamuro. Shinno was part of a band until he left for Tokyo to become a professional guitarist after the sisters' parents passed away, and he was never to be seen again.

In eastern France, two teenage cousins have the summer of their lives when they paddle a purloined canoe to the far shore of a lake.

A teenager named Noriko Shimabara runs away from her family in Toyokawa, to meet Kumiko, the leader of an Internet BBS, Haikyo.com. She becomes involved with Kumiko's family circle, which grows darker after the mass suicide of 54 high school girls.

Shizuku lives a simple life, dominated by her love for stories and writing. One day she notices that all the library books she has have been previously checked out by the same person: 'Seiji Amasawa'.

Alice Howland, happily married with three grown children, is a renowned linguistics professor who starts to forget words. When she receives a devastating diagnosis, Alice and her family find their bonds tested.

A summer fling born under the Sicilian sun quickly develops into a heartbreaking love story that forces a boy and girl to grow up too quickly.

Three years after the Hiroshima bombing, a teenager helps a group of orphans to survive and find their new life.

High school student Yuki Hase wants to become close with classmate Kaori Fujimiya who is alway by herself. Kaori Fujimiya refuses to become close with Yuki Hase, because she forgets her friends every new Monday. Even though Kaori tells Yuki why she doesn't want to become friends, Yuki still wants to become close to her.

In middle school, Futaba Yoshioka was madly in love with Tanaka Kou but he moves away with his mother. She is reunited with him later in life but he is not the same person anymore.

Masashi is a photographer. He has his parents and an older brother Yukihiro. Through the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, Masashi begins to take staged photos of his family.

Eighteen-year-old Penny Cooper spent years pining for heartthrob surfer Johnny Sanders Jr. before his father’s tragic death brought them closer together. But now high school is over, and when mysterious country musician Ash Baker shows up on the beach, Penny is torn.
