Andrew here. I was lucky enough to get a ticket to see Minamata, the film about the disease and the efforts of Eugene Smith to publicise it globally, yesterday in Minamata city.
I didn’t know a great deal about the disease before seeing the movie but I found it both informative and touching, helping me to understand the horrors of the disease and the impact it had on the victims, their families, and the community. This was made even more poignant for me by somebody affected by the disease being present at the screening and Aileen Smith, the wife and collaborator of Eugene during his time in Minamata, giving a short talk after the movie had finished.
While the movie is clearly tailored towards a Western audience, the Japanese audience members I spoke to afterwards all enjoyed it and thought it captured what the people of Minamata went through. They all hoped that as many people as possible would see this movie so they could learn about the tragedy that unfolded here and the corporate indifference which perpetuated it.
I highly recommend it to all. It is not just a movie about a tragedy that took place in this prefecture, but it is also a moving story containing lessons about environmental pollution and human dignity which resonate to this day.