The director of The Cove said yesterday that a decision by a US military base in Japan to ban the Oscar-winning film on dolphin killings and protests at the local distributor’s office won’t silence the film’s message on saving dolphins.
The Cove documents the bloody bludgeoning of dolphins by fishermen in the western seaside Japanese town of Taiji, where some dolphins are captured and sold to aquariums while others are killed for their meat. The film has set off a flurry of debate, especially after it won best documentary at this year’s Academy Awards.
The Japanese government is adamant that whaling and dolphin hunts must continue for research and cultural purposes, but most Japanese have never eaten whale or dolphin, and are shocked to see the slaughter.
The US Air Force Yokota Air Base, west of Tokyo, decided last week to cancel the screening at its on-base theater to be “sensitive to local political and cultural concerns,” base spokesperson Mitsuru Takahashi said.
The Cove director Louie Psihoyos said he will give away 100 DVDs of the movie to people at the base so they can see it.
“The military is facing a lot of pressure by our government to make nice of the Japanese,” he told reporters by telephone from Boulder, Colorado. “We are going to win this battle, with or without the US military.”
The film has not yet opened in Japan, except at a festival and small screenings, and is set to be shown at theaters in June. The faces of the fishermen and many other people in the film are blurred out to protect their privacy.
In recent weeks, dozens of nationalist protesters with loudspeakers have shown up at the distributor’s downtown Tokyo office demanding the film not be shown. Some theaters may choose not to show the film simply to avoid trouble.
Psihoyos, executive director of the Oceanic Preservation Society, a nonprofit for protecting the environment, said he was hopeful Japanese will be interested in what he said was a warning in his movie about the health risks of eating dolphin meat, which has mercury contamination levels higher than fish.
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
Chinese authorities increased pressure on CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd over its plan to sell its Panama ports stake by sharing a second newspaper commentary attacking the deal. The Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on Saturday reposted a commentary originally published in Ta Kung Pao, saying the planned sale of the ports by the Hong Kong company had triggered deep concerns among Chinese people and questioned whether the deal was harming China and aiding evil. “Why were so many important ports transferred to ill-intentioned US forces so easily? What kind of political calculations are hidden in the so-called commercial behavior on the
RSS