Filmmaker Watanabe Fumiki arrested

[Roland Domenig]

According to newspaper reports filmmaker Watanabe Fumiki was been arrested on Wednesday on grounds of suspected fraud. He is charged of having not paid the bill of a ryokan where he had stayed with a woman and child for three days end of January. Watanabe claims to have paid the bill.
What is suspicious about the case is the timing of the arrest, 10 days before Watanabe's new films NOMONHAN and TENNO DENSETSU are sceduled to be screened in Yokohama (the alleged fraud happened 4 month ago). One can speculate whether this is an attempt to harass Watanabe. Both films are for sure anathema to the Japanese right and we will see whether the response to Watanabe's film about the "tenno myth" will displace the fuss about YASUKUNI.

Roland Domenig