"The Cove" Rejected By Tokyo Film Festival

[hundefar]

[YT]Oou3N5ylvdI[/YT]

"You know what we say: Save the whales...for dinner!"

[Catoneinutica]

"In early August, director Louis Psihoyos told The Toronto Star that his documentary, "The Cove," had been submitted to the Tokyo International Film Festival and rejected. In the article he quoted an unnamed TIFF "director" who said that the festival receives funding from the Japanese government, which "doesn't want this movie out there."

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fd20090830pb.html

[Mulboyne]

Japanese TV went to Broome to gauge local reaction. The report is in Japanese although there are some interviewees speaking English.

[YT]yb_fGdtjLkg[/YT]

[hundefar]

Festival to screen Taiji dolphin-slaughter film

Bowing to international pressure, the Tokyo International Film Festival announced Wednesday it will screen the controversial award-winning American documentary about the annual dolphin hunt in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, at the nine-day event in October.

more..

...

[Mulboyne]

[Greji]

...Quote:
Festival to screen Taiji dolphin-slaughter film

Bowing to international pressure, the Tokyo International Film Festival announced Wednesday it will screen the controversial award-winning American documentary about the annual dolphin hunt in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, at the nine-day event in October.

more..

Award-winning? Has that mutt even played yet?

[American Oyaji]

Award-winning? Has that mutt even played yet?

In Europe it has.

[Mulboyne]

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Japan Today: West Australian town reverses Taiji sister-city decision

Geez, what a grovelling turnaround from that righteous fury of just a few weeks ago.
Japan's pro-whaling factions will be delighted by this.

[Takechanpoo]

Geez, what a grovelling turnaround from that righteous fury of just a few weeks ago.
Japan's pro-whaling factions will be delighted by this.

I can easily defeat you in an argument.
But I dont do it because it makes no sense for really civilized people like me to persuade south barbarians who just has the same inferior civilization as Maya one.
After all all we advanced civilized people can do is to wait for south barbarians to be civilized as much as us.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

I can easily defeat you in an argument.

How true...but it's nothing to brag. My intellectually disabled 2-year-old beats me in arguments many times every day.

But I dont do it because it makes no sense for really civilized people like me to persuade south barbarians who just has the same inferior civilization as Maya one.
After all all we advanced civilized people can do is to wait for south barbarians to be civilized as much as us.

Where can I get some of whatever you're on?

[Mike Oxlong]

Where can I get some of whatever you're on?

A quick high is never too far away...

[Greji]

A quick high is never too far away...

I gave him a tube of that good stuff and he stuck in his ear.....

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

I gave him a tube of that good stuff and he stuck in his ear.....

Could have been worse...he might have mistaken it for lube.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Interesting articleabout Australian hypocrisy regarding whaling...

[Ketou]

Interesting articleabout Australian hypocrisy regarding whaling...

lol...they used the racist card...

[leitmotiv]

[Mulboyne]

Variety: 'Cove' secures Japanese release

Controversial nature docu "The Cove" will get a Japan release, Tokyo-based distrib Unplugged announced on Wednesday. The exact date and the number of screens have yet to be decided, but the distrib is shooting for an early summer bow. The Louie Psihoyos docu about the annual slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, Japan was a last-minute addition to the Tokyo Film Festival, which unspooled in October. In early August, Psihoyos told Canadian critic Peter Howell that an unnamed fest "director" had nixed the pic, explaining that government pressure had caused the fest to cave. Psihoyos also accused the fest of hypocrisy given its "green" theme, which was inaugurated by chairman Tom Yoda in 2008 under the slogan "Action for Earth," and was symbolized by the Green Carpet the event used for its opening ceremony.

Yoda later denied having "that sort of conversation with anyone in the government." At a Sept. 16 presser for the fest he did mention that fest programmers were concerned that the docu "might cause disputes." Despite the presence of reps from Taiji in the aud, the fest screening of "The Cove" ended without major incident. Tokyo-based Medallion Media acquired the pic for Japan from The Works International. Unplugged was then commissioned to handle distribution and PR. "The Cove" has been nommed for a documentary Oscar, as well as wining 22 prizes at fests around the word. Tokyo, however, was not one of them.

By coincidence, I saw the documentary for the first time last night. For all the hi-tech subterfuge, they didn't really get great footage of the slaughter itself but did manage to make some effective points. It's difficult to know how a Japanese audience would respond. The arguments about mercury are quite clear but the way the film-makers pull the wool over the eyes of the local authorities might well come across poorly.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

[Mike Oxlong]

[Greji]

[SIZE="5"]'The Cove' wins Oscar for Best Documentary[/SIZE]

"critically acclaimed?"

I'm sure that they measured the film on its shock value and the skill required in obtaining the surreptitiously taken footage. All of this probably cannot be questioned, but whether it was "critically acclaimed," or not, would seem to be a better question to ponder.

I'm not a big documentary person, so the green peace movement of the dolphin world didn't do much to[GV][/GV] plunk my planger, as such, I don't know if this was really worthy of an Oscar.....Or was just another "Flipper does Dallas"

[Mike Oxlong]

My own subjective impression was that the little fishing village was achetypical of a closed Japanese society, and the undercover mission to get footage of the hunt and slaughter played well. The flim itself was fine, but unremarkable.

[Mulboyne]

Yoji Kita, head of the Taijicho Municipal Board of Education, said: "The award shows that Westerners lack tolerance--I doubt they have good sense. I think [their lack of understanding] stems from the differences in our religious cultures."

Yomiuri

[Christoff]

Yomiuri

funny he didnt mention the fact that the meat was poisoning the children. But what ever, if the japanese want to have more mongoloid babies, by all means, let them eat flipper's toxic ass.

[Yokohammer]

But this is a bit odd too:

Psihoyos said via the distributor: "The real reward to me will occur when the dolphin slaughter is stopped, dolphins go free and the [Taijicho] cove is returned to the people of Japan as a national park."

I understand up to "when the dolphin slaughter is stopped,", but "returned to the people of Japan"?

[American Oyaji]

He means invasion.

[Catoneinutica]

But this is a bit odd too:


I understand up to "when the dolphin slaughter is stopped,", but "returned to the people of Japan"?

Watching the documentary, you're given the impression that the entire "Japanese dolphin slaughter" boils down to approximately a dozen fishermen in a single town who have somehow managed to get cordoned off big pieces of publicly-owned land adjacent to the dolphin-corralling cove. Selling dolphins to amusement parks is apparently such a lucrative little earner you've got to assume there's yakuza involvement.

[Mulboyne]

Officials with Unplugged Inc., the distributor of "The Cove," said changes would be made before the movie is screened in Japan. The faces of local residents would be scrambled and subtitles added at the end of the movie saying there are differences in studies about mercury levels and that Taiji town was opposed to elements of the movie.

Tokiya Nitta, a lecturer at the School of Marine Science and Technology at Tokai University who has studied the history of dolphin hunting along the Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture, said the movie could strengthen the opinions of opponents of the practice.

"In Japan, there is a history of hunting the dolphins with feelings of gratitude and respect because it helped the Japanese when they were faced with famine because of the war," Nitta said. "However, foreigners appear to only focus on the cruel reality of the hunt."

Asahi

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

funny he didnt mention the fact that the meat was poisoning the children. But what ever, if the japanese want to have more mongoloid babies, by all means, let them eat flipper's toxic ass.

Strictly speaking, they're all mongoloid anyway...

[Mulboyne]

Edan Corkill of the Japan Times has mentioned on Twitter (@jt_edancorkill) a 2005 article from the newspaper which has this:

...C.W. Nicol, the renowned environmentalist, author, whaling expert and Japan Times columnist, recently made an M.B.E. by Queen Elizabeth II, witnessed the Taiji dolphin slaughter while living there in 1978. Speaking last week, he said: "It's been a cancer in my gut ever since. It's no good to kill an animal inhumanely, and to do so is not to the advantage of Japan."