Tokyo Screening: The Cove 25 September (RSVP required)

[Jonathan M Hall]

Special Media Screening: The Cove

Time: 2009 Sep 25 19:00 - 21:30
Place: Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, 20F Yurakucho Denki  
Biru North, Tokyo
for directions: http://www.fccj.or.jp/aboutus/map

As FCCJ events are private events, you will need to RSVP to Karen  
Severns if you wish to attend:  kjs30 at gol.com

Respectfully submitted,
Jonathan M Hall




http://www.fccj.or.jp/node/4867

Summary:
SPECIAL MEDIA SCREENING followed by a Q&A session with the film’s  
central figure, dolphin trainer-turned-animal rights activist Ric  
O’Barry

Friday, September 25, 2009 19:00

THE COVE USA, 2009. 92 minutes.

Directed by Louie Psihoyos
Written by Mark Monroe

Produced by the Oceanic Preservation Society, Diamond Docs, Fish  
Films and Quickfire Films
Featuring Ric O'Barry, Mandy-Rae Cruikshank, Louis Psihoyos, Paul Watson

Film courtesy of The Works Media Group

Warning: This film contains graphic scenes of violence against animals.

Language:
In English, with provisional Japanese subtitles

Description:
You've read the news stories, you've heard that Japan has  
unofficially banned it, you know that it was the catalyst for Broome,  
Australia's, recent severing of its Sister City ties with Taiji,  
Japan. Now join the Movie Committee for this important screening of  
The Cove, the sensational award-winning documentary that is the most  
controversial film of 2009.

Directed by former National Geographic photographer Louis Psihoyos,  
The Cove was filmed clandestinely over a five-year period and  
features scenes of incredible beauty as well as brutality. Using  
state-of-the-art equipment and unique guerrilla filmmaking  
techniques, a group of specially skilled activists, led by renowned  
dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry (of Flipper fame), infiltrate a hidden  
cove near Taiji, south of Osaka, to publicize both a shocking  
"tradition" of animal butchery and a grave mercury threat to Japanese  
public health.

Documenting what the New York Times has called "one of the most  
audacious and perilous operations in the history of the conservation  
movement," The Cove traces two painful and parallel journeys:  
O'Barry's personal conversion from the world's most famous dolphin  
trainer to an impassioned (and frequently arrested) dolphin rights  
activist; and the knuckle-whitening forays of the guerrilla team  
determined to expose the ongoing covert massacres of more than 2,500  
dolphins in the isolated cove. The latter tale throbs with real-life  
danger and suspense as the activists resort to high-tech night-vision  
cameras, muffled radio reconnaissance, and cloak-and-dagger evasion  
of local toughs and police.

Invoking testimony from respected Japanese scientists, the film blows  
the whistle on the government's willful neglect of the deadly mercury  
levels in dolphin meat, which is still widely consumed in the  
countryside. Despite mercury toxicity levels frequently 200 to 300  
times the government's upper limits for fish, the meat is sold  
without warning labels in supermarkets or often disguised as harmless  
whale meat. It has even found its way into school lunch programs.  
Despite Minamata’s terrible legacy, the Japanese public remains  
dangerously unaware of the threat.

Winner of the Audience Awards at an unprecedented number of film  
festivals-Sundance Hot Docs, Newport Beach, Nantucket, Silver Docs,  
Sydney-The Cove is currently attracting crowds on specialty screens  
across America. There is no Japanese distributor nor any plans to  
screen it in Japan, so don't miss this opportunity!

All movie screenings are private, noncommercial events restricted to  
FCCJ members and their guests.