LITTLE
MAGIC
FILMS CONTENT ENTERTAINMENT
PRODUCTIONS
CUTIE AND THE BOXER
(2014 Academy Award Nominee; Winner of the Best Documentary, 2015 News & Documentary Emmy Awards; Winner of the Best Director Award in the US Documentary Competition, 2013 Sundance Film Festival) is a reflection on love, sacrifice, and the creative spirit, which explores the candid New York love story of the chaotic 40-year marriage of action painter Ushio Shinohara and his artist wife, Noriko. As a rowdy, confrontational young artist in Tokyo, Ushio seemed destined for fame, but met with little commercial success after he moved to New York City in 1969, seeking international recognition. When 19-year-old Noriko moved to New York to study art, she fell in love with Ushio—abandoning her education to become the wife and assistant to an unruly, alcoholic husband. Now 80, Ushio struggles to establish his artistic legacy, while Noriko is at last being recognized for her own art —a series of drawings entitled “Cutie and the Bullie,” depicting her challenging past with Ushio. Spanning four decades, the film is a moving portrait of a couple wrestling with the eternal themes of sacrifice, disappointment and aging, against a background of lives dedicated to art.
Director: Zachary Heinzerling
Cast: Ushio Shinohara, Noriko Shinohara
13 SINS
A psychological thriller about Eliot Brindle, a social services coordinator, drowning in debt and desperate, as he’s about to marry the love of his life. He receives a mysterious phone call informing him he can win $6.2 million if he completes 13 challenges on a hidden camera game show. Elliot dismissively follows through with his first two instructions: swat the fly that is currently bothering him, then eat the fly. With thousands of dollars suddenly appearing in his bank account, Elliot remains skeptical, though comforted by the knowledge that he can stop playing at anytime if only to lose every penny that he's won. Trapped into the horrors manipulated by unseen spectators, Elliot's need to complete the game escalates as the challenges grow more extreme, to a devastating point of no return.
Director: Daniel Stamm (the Last Exorcism)
Cast: Mark Webber (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World),
Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Rutina Wesley (True Blood)
PAST PRODUCTIONS
SPUN
Three frenetic days in the lives of three
crystal-meth users, dealers, makers, couriers unfold as the police close in on their operation. They ultimately find themselves broken-hearted, imprisoned, hospitalized, or dead. Cut off from their drug supply, those who remain are peaceful for the first time.
Director: Jonas Akerlund
Cast: Mickey Rourke, Jason Schwartzman,
Brittany Murphy, Jason Leguizamo,
Music: Billy Corgan
Executive Producer: Kiki Miyake
US/ Japan Co-Production
ILE AIYE
Impressionistic music documentary
about Candomble, directed by
ex-Talking Heads front man David Byrne.
A visual anthropology about the spiritual
practice that takes place in the Bahia region of Brazil. Full of music & dance, Candomble rituals have deeply influenced Brazilian culture and composers around the world.
Director: David Byrne
Producer: Kiki Miyake
US/Japan Co-Production
THE MAGNUM EYE
Series of 18 documentary shorts directed by renowned Magnum photo-journalists. The product was conceived and produced by Kiki Miyake who persuaded the famed photo-journalists to trade in their Leicas for a small format video camcorder and shoot socio-political subjects around the world. The series was the first new genre that later became known as video diaries.
Selected titles include:
JAB JAB
Director: Bruce Davidson
A PERUVIAN EQUATION
Director: Gilles Peress
THE RUSSIAN PRISON: A SEPARATE LIFE
Director: Gueorgui Pinkhassove
GETTING OUT
Director: Eli Reed
COCAINE TRUE, COCAINE BLUE
Director: Eugene Richards
THE OTHER SIDE
Director: Alex Webb
THE PEOPLE NEXT DOOR
Director: Patrick Zachmann
Producer: Kiki Miyake
US/ Japan Co-Production
VIGO: A PASSION FOR LIFE
A love story based on the lives of one of the most influential film makers of the 20th century and his wife/ muse. Jean Vigo and Lydu meet while both are patients at a tuberculosis sanatorium. What follows is the story of a relationship that is enormously powerful but ultimately difficult to sustain. The film is a testament to the fact that, whatever we choose to do with our lives, love remains the best weapon at our disposal.
Director: Julien Temple
Producer: Kiki Miyake
UK/Japan/France/Germany Co-Production
ACQUISITIONS
Click on a title to view key art, director/ cast info (and awards where applicable).
Selected titles include: