Deep in the windswept marshes of war-torn medieval Japan, an impoverished older woman and her daughter-in-law murder lost samurai and sell their belongings for the most meager of sustenance. When a bedraggled neighbor returns from battle, lust, jealousy, and rage threaten to destroy the trio’s tenuous existence, before an ominous, ill-gotten demon mask seals their horrifying fate.

Erotically charged and steeped in the symbolism and superstition of its Buddhist and Shintô roots, Onibaba is in part a modern parable on consumerism, a study of the destructiveness of sexual desire and one of the most striking and unique films of Japan’s last half-century.

You’re invited to the LUMI Masquerade, a season of films that peeks behind the masks, literal and metaphorical, we all wear. Through a selection of 6 films chosen entirely by LUMI Programmers, we’ll explore what masks conceal and reveal.