Sennan Asbestos Disaster

Documentary Focus

North American Premiere

Intro and Q&A with director Kazuo Hara, producer Sachiko Kobayashi, and film participants

Beginning in the 1970s Kazuo Hara (The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On) developed the iconoclastic “action documentary” style breaking ethical norms of nonfiction filmmaking to follow a protagonist collapsing personal boundaries in pursuit of political truths in disability rights, queer self-determination, or wartime atrocity. Ten years in the making, the epic Sennan Asbestos Disaster builds on this method, joining citizens of Sennan, Osaka seeking legal reparations from the government for exposing their working class community to asbestos factories’ deadly toxins. A powerful ensemble piece gaining strength from the warmth of everyday people standing up to the state for their rights, this radical film analyzes collective action and its limits, locating poisonous threats in self-regulating social mores as much as environmental pollution.

2017. 215 min. DCP, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Kazuo Hara. With Yoko Okada, Kazuyoshi Yuoka, Kazuko Minami, Miyoko Sato, Chiuko Ishikawa.

Citizens’ Prize, 2017 Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival
BIFF Mecenat Award, 2017 Busan International Film Festival
Audience Award, 2017 Tokyo FILMeX International Film Festival

Healthy Japanese light meals, snacks and festival-related refreshments available for purchase by  .