Backstage

A rebellious Korean artist tests the limits of his sadistic patron, an omnipotent feudal Japanese lord. Yoshihide demands a commission to paint screens of the Hell which he sees the egotistical lord's peasants suffer. Such a public display will challenge the uncaring upper class' obsession with their own personal beauty. With Chinese and Buddhist influences at a peak in 11th century Japan, the daimyo Horikawa wanted a mural of Buddhist paradise. As Yoshihide's ghastly artworks appear to come to life, the painter and his patron's mutual racism also take their toll.

Yume is high school student in Okinawa. There, the residents are divided over the construction of a U.S. military base. Yume though doesn't care. She begins to change when her classmate Yusuke disappears. Yusuke is the one adamantly opposed to the military base due to the damage it may cause to the beautiful sea.

13-year-old Pinky has a pop band with two girlfriends. When the father goes bankrupt and the family has to leave the large villa, they have nowhere to repeat, and Pinky is ejected from the circle of friends.

Radio Free Europe, BBC, and Voice of America can only rarely get through the Iron Curtain and Soviet mufflers to Lithuania, a country torn by a war between the local resistance movement and the Soviet regime that is forced onto Lithuanian people by bayonets of the Russian army. Everybody who tries to resist the Soviet rule is either terrorized or executed or exiled to Siberia. He is one of the local high-school students who witness the local armed resistance to the Soviet regime and ultimately decide to join it by taking a gun into their hands. He collects documents and all possible kinds of evidence that prove daunting crimes of the Kremlin. He soon becomes a legend among his peers. To girls, he is John Wayne the Hollywood Icon. Guys see him as an insurmountable obstacle and an invincible rival in matters of love. He is destined to take part at the historical March to the West and inform the US Congress of the Baltic States' struggle for freedom, which subsequently leads to the Welles Declaration. The latter drives a wedge between two former allies, the USA and the USSR, and keeps the hope for independence alive in the three Baltic States under the Soviet occupation during the long years of the entire Cold War. "Owl Mountain" is a full lenght feature historical drama about the political and social issues of Lithuania in 1947-1952 m. which reflect most of Soviet occupied countries' life. It's about the journey of committed partisans and the message they carry out, about devotion and bloody fight, internecine relationships, love and hate, postwar generation, fear to die but not strong enough to defeat the aim for independence. That's the story of hope which is symbolized by the Voice of America. Story of reckless risk, survival, unity, and here the Jewish are stated as the best example of encouragement. Story of friendship, also with the different cultures but same destinies, such as hiding Germans. That's the story about sacrifice for freedom, for national, social and finally simple human happiness.

A shy and feeble architect is victim of a violent and abusing surrounding. The pressure builds up until he is pushed to the limit of his own humanity.