Kirk here with a follow-up to Fiona’s post about movie viewing opportunities. Fiona’s post is here:
https://www.facebook.com/Kumamotoi/posts/7428651917208176
I posted a comment with links to articles and websites related to the human rights abuses at Ushiku and to the film itself. Personally, I’m very interested in the movie but I hesitate to view it at a theatre in Kumamoto because I suspect that English subtitles will not be provided. I haven’t called Denshikan to ask about that point so, if you’re wondering whether or not to go, please check it out with them and report back in a comment. The official trailer on the Japanese side of the movie’s official website does not have English subtitles, even when only Japanese is being spoken:
https://www.ushikufilm.com/en/theaters/
For me, I’d like to have the English subtitles even when English is being spoken because, as you can tell form the trailer, the quality of the sound that could be obtained from surreptitiously recorded interviews is not good.
Still, I think the content looks to be very important. The screenshot I’m sharing is of a part of the trailer where the prisoners are talking about how disgusted they are by the claim that the word “omotenashi” bespeaks a deep cultural commitment to hospitality. This claim was repeated over and over in the run-up to the 2020 Olympics. And, 2020 was the year in which non-Japanese residents who happened to have traveled outside of Japan when international travel was still allowed found themselves unable to return:
Stop the entry ban on legal foreign residents of Japan https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-entry-ban-on-legal-foreign-residents-of-japan