Tokyo Waka
Strange magic flows in the atmosphere of this documentary. The more time we spend with the crows--loud, hairy troll-like creatures with wings--the more they seem to take on mystical characteristics...
John Haptas
John Haptas is a documentary film editor. Among his editing credits are Soundtrack to a Riot for Frontline World (Emmy Nomination), Hunting the Hidden Dimension, a program on fractal geometry for PBS Nova ("Pierre-Gilles de Gennes" Science Film Prize), and Inside Guantanamo Bay, a two-hour National Geographic Explorer special (editor/co-writer; Emmy nominations for Best Documentary and for Writing). He recently finished editing Regarding Susan Sontag (Tribeca Film Festival, Special Jury Award; HBO broadcast December 2014).
[bio courtesy of the filmmaker]
Filmography
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Tokyo Waka
TOKYO WAKA is as much a carefully-etched, lyrical portrait of Tokyo and its denizens as it is a full-fledged rendering of the surprisingly rich life of crows. A tofu seller, a homeless woman and a Buddhist priest contemplate mortality, the metabolism of their city and garbage, while around them...Watch Movie
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The Days and the Hours
THE DAYS AND THE HOURS is an intimate view of an unlikely sanctuary in a hard world. At St. Boniface Church in the middle of San Francisco, homeless people are allowed to sleep in the pews in the midst of daily church activity. Filling row after row, over a hundred exhausted...Watch Movie
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Riding the Tiger
RIDING THE TIGER is a haunting and lyrical evocation of the hubris, despair and devastation of the American war in Vietnam. Archival film, both gorgeous and chilling, and footage of a B-52 graveyard are combined with the voices of GIs, Vietnamese villagers and journalists,...Watch Movie
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Empire of the Moon
EMPIRE OF THE MOON wryly deconstructs the experience of being a tourist. Paris, gorgeously photographed in black-and-white, is the setting for cultural explorations ranging from the mundane to the sublime, as visitors trek from icon to icon, snapping the same photos, climbing...Watch Movie
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Wrong Place, Wrong Time
WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME is the deeply affecting portrait of Stephen Moses, a young art student who was shot dead at a phone booth in a random shooting. The voices of the friends he left behind are heard as we see images of his art work in a posthumous exhibit. They remind us...Watch Movie
Genres
- Documentary / Crime
- Documentary / Environment
- Documentary / History
- Documentary / Science / Biology / Zoology
- Documentary / Social Issues
- Documentary / Travelogue
- Documentary / War
- Independent / Documentary
- International / Americas / North American / American
- International / Asian / Japanese
- International / European / French
- Short / Documentary
Recent Reviews
Tokyo Waka
great photography. the message is confusing but interesting
Tokyo Waka
Really love this subtle and poetic film that is at once a portrait of Tokyo and a meditation on the relationship between humans and other creatures.
Tokyo Waka
Really enjoyed this film! Very well done.
Tokyo Waka
Memorable for the evocation of Tokyo and its crows, the city's homeless people and its overgrown, intergrown architecture. The documentary's varied and articulate speakers and points of view lift the...