The Cove Movie Shows in Toyko
Dolphin slaughter as at Taiji
Despite often ridiculous levels of resistance, interference and ingenious neglect, The Cove and director Louie Psihoyos made their debuts at the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) yesterday and largely stole the show. He reports of his experience: here. See CCN footage of film crews being removed from the festival, made to wait in a fire escape and not ask questions: here.
Louie Psihoyos, director of The Cove at Tokyo Film Festival
TIFF initially refused to include The Cove in its green “Action for the Earth!” themed 2009 festival because of its “sensitive” (i.e., blood-drenched, Japan-critical) nature. A decision overturned due to persistent interventions by Hollywood ‘Cove supporters’, such as Ben Stiller, and TIFF jury president Alejandro González Iñárritu who, with other free speech advocates, pressured organizers to relent and include it the line-up.
Acceptance did not mean endorsement, however, and TIFF continued to undercut the screening, especially after the town of Taiji threatened to sue the festival for showing the film and right wingers vowed to protest with their deafening PA trucks. The film was first assigned an inconspicuous 10:30 am slot in a 165-seat venue on Wednesday 21 October, instantly selling out online. When pressed to assign an additional venue, TIFF officials scheduled a 9:00 am “press only” showing on Sunday 18 October … but forgot to notify the press corps that the showing had been arranged.
When Louie arrived at festival the morning of the 21st, he, CNN and everyone else discovered that TIFF had also suddenly changed the photo rules. Citing the “privacy rights” of the building owner, no one was allowed to shoot Louie on the “green carpet” entryway (where the glitzy star walk pics are always shot). Nor under the huge TIFF entry sign. Louie and party where then hustled to a sealed off upstairs lounge until the post-showing Q&A for their “protection and privacy”.
It wasn’t the warmest reception. On the other hand, the early threats regarding Louie’s airport arrest, rightist disruptions, and last minute TIFF cancellations proved to be hollow bravado. Everyone was just relieved the event was going through at all.
Inside the “sold out” theater TIFF had miraculously discovered a row of empty seats that was now filled with Taiji officials, including Mayor Sangen, the fisherman nicknamed “Private Space” and several Fishery Agency bureaucrats. When the film ended and audience broke into applause, Mayor Sangen and his entourage trooped out scowling before Louie appeared and the Q&A began.
The Cove director
Louie recounted the internal evolution of a classic documentary that follows a developing story rather than imposing predetermined script lines of its own. He recalled his own wake up call at a sushi dinner with some Minamata doctors who refused to eat any of the larger, more expensive fish.
When asked why, the doctors said they had tried a fish eating experiment on themselves to test mercury accumulation. They found that eating 200 grams of small fish per day doubled their mercury levels in a month, but that the same amount of larger fish increased their own mercury blood toxicity by eight times in the same span of time. This led Louie to test his own levels as well as those of his fisherman son. Both went through the roof, awakening him quite personally to the mercury menace in our seas and widening his appreciation of the risks of our fossil-fueled (and mercury intensive) energy economy.
The entire session was quite gratifying with complimentary comments far out-numbering the critiques. It ended with another round of appreciative applause, primarily for Louie but also for Ms. Tamako Takamatsu, the incredibly talented translator the Earth Island Institute advance team had hired, since the TIFF refused to offer a customary Q&A interpreter of its own.
“Komatsu, who wrote the definitive book on the Japanese defense of whaling had his head between his knees and was frantically rubbing his temples as if trying to poltergeist a migraine. If everybody else around him wasn’t in shock, I think they would have gotten him a doctor. ”
Louie and crew then trucked down to a press conference organized by the advance team in a trendy nearby club. The briefing was attended by about 45 Japanese and foreign media representatives, as well as 40 people from local activist groups. It was moderated by the London Time’s distinguished Asian editor, Richard Lloyd Parry, who actually appears briefly in The Cove getting hit over the head with a sign by an irate Taiji fisherman.
Dolphins in the wild
Though some of the Japanese press comments were fairly critical of the movie’s alleged cultural chauvinism, e.g. condemning dolphin fishing but not wholesale factory farmed cow and pig slaughter, Louie said he did not condone such practices either. They were outside the purview of his film. He made an impassioned defense of his Ocean Preservation Society’s focus on the critical state of the seas. Citing the catastrophic decline of ocean life and health globally and need for activism on every front, Louie pointed to the dolphin tragedy as a symbolic and motivating issue rather than the be all end all of the film.
Properly understood, he said, The Cove is actually “a love letter to the Japanese people” – a sincere effort to seduce them into a greater planetary love affair that would radically improve our world and protect their children, too.
Ric O'Barry at The Cove in Taiji
Louie followed this run with several more exhausting hours of one-on-one interviews with major domestic and international media outlets. The long effort paid off handsomely. Over 800 stories were published on Google News the following day, not to mention the scores of stories and TV clips running in the Japanese media that completely overshadowed all other TIFF news for the week.
Indeed from the Associated Press’s first story on the 2009 TIFF opening, that was half about The Cove to the torrent of Cove coverage that continued through the week, it is obvious the TIFF executives knew exactly what they were doing when they tried to preemptively ban the film. They understand color and know a bloody rain of dolphin tears can always grey out and overshadow a faux ‘eco-green’ parade. This year’s festival was themed as being “for the environment”.
Louie flew out the next morn for the German and UK openings. He expressed his deepest gratitude to the EII advance team which had organized all his events, and leveraged The Cove’s 9/25 Tokyo Foreign Correspondents Club showing into a potent media network, which made TIFF’s attempted news blackout a bit of a farce.
Asian Cove distributor, Carl Clifton of the Works Media Group stayed behind in Tokyo to try and leverage the sudden notoriety into theater distribution on the ground. Talks are still in progress.
Report: David Kubiak
Tokyo Anti-Fur Protest
The 2009 anti-fur demonstration will be held in Tokyo in order to appeal the cruelty of fur industry. It has been organized by the Animal Rights Center (ARC), (English details, here) and other No Fur campaigners (Japanese) for 25th October (Sun) 2009.
Animal Rights Center is a specified nonprofit organization in Japan, since 1987. It has been working to advocate Animal Rights: the eradicating of animal testing, unethical killing, abuse and abandonment of animals.
It aims for a future in which humanity will peacefully coexist with animals.
Time:
- 13:00 – Reception start
13:45 – Meeting starts
14:30 – Parade starts
16:00 – Parade ends
Meeting place:
- Yoyogi Kohen-B, Keyakinamiki
7min. walk from Shibuya or Harajuku station
Directions:
Yoyogi Kohen > Shibuya station > Aoyama Dori > Omotesando > Yoyogi Kohen
Dress and props:
- Black clothes
Animal costumes
Protest signs
After the Parade there will have a gathering to chat and watch videos concerning about animal rights.
Save the Dolphin & Vegan Open Day Success
Despite an email writing campaign to distrupt the event, and being banned by a Vegetarian Society of Japan director from advertising their showing of footage of The Cove at the Kyoto Vegetarian Festival, Michael Bailey, David Kubiak and Shizuko Ouwehand spoke to a room filled beyond its capacity at a special meeting held by the Vegan Society of Japan at the Kyoto Kaikan Hall.
The audience included a mix of Japanese and foreign guests and was held bi-lingually.
Michael Bailey, described as “one of the foremost eco-warriors of our times” according to founding member of Greenpeace Rex Weyler, was one of the original anti-whaling campaigners. In the 1970s, he rode Zodiac inflatable boats in front of armed Russian whalers to stop the whales being killed. Coming from Tokyo, where he was raising awareness about the ‘The Cove’ documentary, Michael was in Japan promoting the Save the Japan Dolphin campaign.
The speakers hoped to bring to the Japanese population’s attention the high level of mercury poisoning in dolphin meat and made a passionate plea for individuals to work to save the lives of these sentient creatures, to study them instead and explore their healing nature, and recounted stories of incidents where they had saved human lives.
Michael spoke of his history of activism and showed video clips from previous campaigns to save crustacea. David, once was once described by the Whole Earth Review as ‘one of the most interesting minds on the planet’ offered an analysis of the state of society, the environment movement in Japan and what could be done to bring about positive changed.
“Whereas ’0.4 parts per million’ is the safe level allowed by the Japanese government for many types of fish, the highest concentration he has found so far was 100 parts per million from a bottlenose dolphin – a species which is regularly butchered in Taiji.”
Vegan Society of Japan
Following the public event, the Vegan Society of Japan committee met, with individuals attending from Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Shikoku, the UK & the USA, in order to discuss the structure and future developments of the Vegan NPO in Japan.
Special Vegan Society of Japan Event in Kyoto
Special Event and Vegan Society ‘Open Day’ Kyoto
The Cove
To coincide with this year’s 7th annual Vegetarian Festival Kyoto, The Vegan Society of Japan is organizing an ‘open day’ at the Kyoto Kaikan Hall between 4 pm and 9 pm on 4th October 2009.
All individuals interested in finding out more about our future and becoming part of the Vegan Society are welcome to join us.
The venue is situated directly right next to the Okazaki Park where the Festival is held. See map below or directions, here.
As a special event, the society will be showing clips of Sundance Festival Awarded documentary ‘The Cove‘ about Ric O’Barry’s campaign to save the dolphin of Taiji from slaughter. See previous post, here.
Special Guests
A very special welcome is being extended to:
• Noted conservationist and adventure program producer Michael Bailey of Planetviews Productions, and
• W. David Kubiak, once described by The Whole Earth Review as, “one of the most interesting minds on the planet”.
The two activists are in Japan promoting the ‘The Cove’ documentary along with the Save Japan Dolpins Campaign. Michael, and members of the Planetviews Productions team, were recently trained to present materials featured in Al Gore‘s award-winning film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.
• Shizuko Ouwehand, who served as interpreter for the showing of ‘The Cove’ at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan in Tokyo, has studied ‘Dolphin Assisted Therapy’. Shizuko promotes the work of the first Dolphin Healing Centre in the grounds of the 700 year old Myoren-ji Temple, Kyoto.
• Local vegan artist, Nao, whose sculpture represents the 80 living beings a year that becoming vegan saves, will also be on display.
Nao has also been exploring the methods and ingredients used to make completely ‘non-violent’ vegetarian, ceramics.
Kyoto Kaikan is to the left, Okazaki Park where the Vegetarian Festival is, on the right.
Vegetarian Festivals 2009 Kyoto & Tokyo
Vegetarian Festival Kyoto 4 October
This year’s 7th annual Vegetarian Festival Kyoto, organized by Akiko Iwasa but sponsored by The Vegetarian Society of Japan and others, is being held on 4 October between 10 am to 5 pm in the Okazaki Park, see below. As it is a public park, entrance is free.
The festival is actually organized by local vegans and provides only vegan food. Booths include; animal rights groups ‘No Fur, Osaka’, ALIVE and JAVA; the Japan Vegetarian Society; local homeopaths, reflexologists and shiatsu experts; hemp manufacturers; and numerous vegan food and drink stalls.
Akiko is also hosting a pre-festival party on October 3, 2009 between 7 and 9 pm at the Kyoto Co-op Hotel, price: ¥ 3,000 including soft drinks and a buffet dinner.
Tokyo Vegetarian Food Festival “VegefoodFesta”, October 17 and 18
The annual Tokyo Vegetarian Festival is set for the 17th and 18th of October in Yoyogi Park, in front of the NHK hall, between 10am-5pm.
This year’s event will be entirely vegan.
VegefoodFesta is an annual event held at Yoyogi Park since 2003. It is one of the largest vegetarian festivals in Japan featuring a wide variety of food and lifestyle products from 100 vendors and exhibitors including vegetarian, macrobiotic and raw food restaurants, organic vegetable and goods sellers.
Directions
- 10 mins walk from Shibuya Station
6 mins walk from Harajuku Station
6 mins walk from Meiji-Jingu Mae Station or Yoyogi Koen Station, Tokyo Metro
6 mins walk from Yoyogihachiman Station, Odakyu line
Sponsors: Otokokomaie Tofu Inc., Ginza Yoshimizu, Japan Vegetarian Society, San-Iku Vegetus and other
Supporters: Japan Tourism Agency, Veggy Steady Go!, GrowthProcess Co Ltd, Japan Vegetarian Society
My Skin … Your Fashion?
Two new T-shirt design, one in English and the same in Japanese, are now available from Vegan Society of Japan shop. Anti-fur for fashion and anti-animal testing for cosmetics.
These are available in female and male designs, and in a variety of colors. Click images to buy and see more.
太地町 Taiji – Dolphin Slaughter Season Starts
Dolphin activist Ric O’Barry claims that the people of Japan have never learned about the dolphin slaughter in Taiji because none of the major Japanese media have ever sent reporters to the ‘Killing Cove’ where the dolphins are slaughtered.
This year, thanks to the Sundance Film Festival awarding winning documentary ‘The Cove‘, many international journalists and camera crews from Japan have arrived in Taiji (Wakayama) this week. Although the killing season started on September 1, no blood has been seen in coves around Taiji so far.
Please watch the trailer and encourage your local cinema, university, NPO or club to show the documentary.
In this clip, the world famous National Geographic photographer and director Louie Psihoyos talks about the making of the documentary.
Links:
• The Cove Movie
• Oceanic Preservation Society
• Save Japan Dolphins
• Surfers for Cetaceans
• Take part – what can you do?
More information to follow.
