Sachiko Kobayashi

After years of dumping industrial wastes from the factory to the ocean, Chisso Chemical Corporation contaminated the area of a small Japanese fishing village with excessive amounts of methylmercury. This highly toxic chemical bioaccumulated in fishes of the local water, which when consumed by the local populace resulted in mercury poisoning. In 1977, Minamata disease certification criteria was set by a strange method that tried not to recognize the rights of environmental disease patients. However, an Osaka court won the case for some patients because of a newly developed theory by medical doctors’ recent experiments and proofs. For decades, these patients struggled within the Japanese judicial system for their rights to receive compensation as victims of environmental disease. Those different aspects of these patients’ lives have been filmed by director Hara for the last 15 years, inspired by the late director Tsuchimoto’s documentary MINAMATA: THE VICTIMS AND THEIR WORLD (1971).

This film is about a lawsuit seeking state compensation for asbestos-related damage in the Sennan area of Osaka. Filmmaker Hara Kazuo records the eight-year struggle of the plaintiffs and their lawyers. A dogged and dramatic depiction of their intense battle.

When her husband is hospitalized with tuberculosis, Chika has a series of three relationships: with a teacher in her hometown, with a student in Tokyo, and with an aging gangster.

A documentary following the lives of people in Mishima, a small island off the coast of Hagi City, Yamaguchi Prefecture.

A profile of the controversial novelist Mitsuharu Inoue, filmed during the last years of his life.

Kenzo Okuzaki, a 62-year-old veteran of the New Guinea campaign in World War II, sets out to conduct interviews with survivors and relatives to find the truth behind atrocities committed while the Japanese garrison was surrounded, in particular the unexplained killing of two Japanese privates in his unit.

In 1972, Miyuki tells her ex-lover Kazuo that she's going to Okinawa with their son. Kazuo decides to film her. He narrates his visits to her there: first while her flatmate is Sugako, a woman Miyuki is attracted to; then, while she works at a bar and is with Paul, an African-American soldier. Once, Kazuo brings his girlfriend, Sachiko. We see Miyuki with her son, with other bar girls, and with Sachiko. Miyuki, pregnant, returns to Tokyo and delivers a mixed-race child on her own with Kazuo and Sachiko filming. She joins a women's commune, talks about possibilities, enjoys motherhood, and is uninterested in a traditional family. Does the filmmaker have a point of view?

In 1972, Miyuki tells her ex-lover Kazuo that she's going to Okinawa with their son. Kazuo decides to film her. He narrates his visits to her there: first while her flatmate is Sugako, a woman Miyuki is attracted to; then, while she works at a bar and is with Paul, an African-American soldier. Once, Kazuo brings his girlfriend, Sachiko. We see Miyuki with her son, with other bar girls, and with Sachiko. Miyuki, pregnant, returns to Tokyo and delivers a mixed-race child on her own with Kazuo and Sachiko filming. She joins a women's commune, talks about possibilities, enjoys motherhood, and is uninterested in a traditional family. Does the filmmaker have a point of view?

Kazuo Hara follows the lives and activities of Yokota Hiroshi and Yokozuka Koichi, members of an activist group made up of people with cerebral palsy.