Director
The Kitades run a butcher shop in Kaizuka City outside Osaka, raising and slaughtering cattle to sell the meat in their store. The seventh generation of their family's business, they are descendants of the buraku people, a social minority held over from the caste system abolished in the 19th century that is still subject to discrimination. As the Kitades are forced to make the difficult decision to shut down their slaughterhouse, the question posed by the film is whether doing this will also result in the deconstruction of the prejudices imposed on them. Though primarily documenting the process of their work with meticulous detail, Aya Hanabusa also touches on the Kitades' participation in the buraku liberation movement. Hanabusa's heartfelt portrait expands from the story of an old-fashioned family business competing with corporate supermarkets, toward a subtle and sophisticated critique of social exclusion and the persistence of ancient prejudices.
Director
There is a small island where agriculture arrived 1,000 years ago when the inhabitants rescued people from a wrecked ship. The island became prosperous and the culture of the island has been handed down from generation to generation. Iwai Island, Kaminoseki City, Yamaguchi Prefecture. The 500 inhabitants of this island in the Seto Inland Sea help each other to survive the harsh natural environment. Water is limited on this rocky island, which often experiences typhoons. The people, however, have flourished by using the sea's resources and cultivating the rocky mountains. You can see clearly in this island that human activities are part of nature’s cycles. In 1982, a nuclear power plant construction project in Tanoura, on the opposite shore about 3.5km from Iwai Island, was proposed. The people here have been opposing to the project.
