Habitual Sadness in Japan

[Janine Hansen]

I have one more thing to relate from the Berlin festival. The Forum
showed two documentaries by South Korean filmmaker Byung Young-Joo, NAZN
MOKSORI 1 and 2 (THE MURMURING and HABITUAL SADNESS are their English
titles). They deal with the present lives of a group of Korean women who
were forced into prostitution by the Japanese Army during WW2 and became
political activists for their own cause in the 1980s. In the Q&A session
following the screening the director told the audience that she had been
to Japan recently to promote HABITUAL SADNESS there. At one occasion she
said a rightist turned up to disturb the showing of the film. She said
the guy actually helped the promotion because his provocation gave them
more public attention than they had hoped for. Have those of you in
Japan heard of the incident and would you be able to tell to what extent
it was reported in the media? Thanks in advance.

Janine