Fifty-five journalists, academics and film directors in Japan condemned intimidation and threats that led movie theaters to cancel screenings of The Cove, a documentary about the slaughter of dolphins in a Japanese village.
Three movie theaters that had been scheduled to show the film later this month canceled their plans last week after receiving a flood of angry telephone calls and warnings of protests by nationalists, who have been screaming slogans outside the Tokyo office of the Japanese distributor in recent months.
Protesters criticize the film as a betrayal of Japanese pride.
The US movie, this year’s winner of the Academy Award for best documentary, features undercover footage of the dolphin hunt in a Japanese village and documents efforts by Ric O’Barry, a former trainer for the Flipper TV series, to stop the slaughter of dolphins for food.
Distributor Unplugged said it was negotiating with dozens of theaters throughout Japan, but no showing has been scheduled so far.
The film was shown at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October last year, but has not yet opened to the Japanese public.
Film director Hirokazu Koreeda, journalist Soichiro Tahara and feminist Chizuko Ueno were among the 55 public personalities who signed a protest letter in which they said they were alarmed by the intimidation tactics used to pressure theaters to cancel the planned screenings.
“This is a film that has been widely shown abroad. If the work, which is about Japan, cannot be shown in Japan, it only underlines the weakness of the freedom of speech in Japan,” they said in the statement sent to media and Unplugged on Monday.
They said that opinion may be divided on the film, but that meant it should be shown to a wide audience to encourage debate.
Most Japanese have never eaten dolphin meat. But some believe killing dolphins and whales is part of traditional culture and resent the interference of outsiders.
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