The Wages of Resistance: Narita Stories - Japan Cuts 2015

The Wages of Resistance: Narita Stories
DOCUMENTARY FOCUS
NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE
The site where Tokyo’s major flight hub Narita International Airport lies is in fact the agricultural area Sanrizuka. Narita’s construction was decided by the Japanese government in the 1960s to support a burgeoning economy, selected due to the farmers’ relatively brief generational connection to the land. While some were bought off, many poor farmers refused, and their resistance gained the attention of the radical student movement. For over a decade they fought divisive land expropriation schemes, physically resisting brutal riot police. Those that remain are the subject of this film, living and farming just outside the gates, looking back on the struggle as planes fly overhead. Shot and co-directed by renowned cinematographer Koshiro Otsu, who filmed Shinsuke Ogawa’s documentaries on Sanrizuka, his stunning early footage appears along with an elegiac score by Otomo Yoshihide. A must-see for everyone involved in political struggle, and anyone who has passed through Narita to Japan.
Japan. 2014. 140 min. DCP, in Japanese with English subtitles. Directed by Haruhiko Daishima, Koshiro Otsu.
Opening Film of 2014 Taiwan International Documentary Festival
“The Wages of Resistance invites us to consider the profits and losses of all attempts to resist state power, no matter where they are or when they happened.” -Markus Nornes
Part of JAPAN CUTS 2015.