FOCUS: Fishermen claim film ignores their 'awe' for whales, dolphins+

WAKAYAMA, Japan, July 2 Kyodo -
Fishermen in the town of Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, remain angered by a film
depicting, partly through hidden cameras, their dolphin hunt ahead of
screenings beginning Saturday in Tokyo and five other Japanese cities.
''The Cove,'' which won the Academy Award for best documentary in March this
year, ''ignores the feeling of awe shared by the people (of Taiji) toward
cetaceans,'' a senior official of the local fishery cooperative said in late
June.
In this small town of some 3,500, the hunting of whales and dolphins has been a
mainstay industry. On a hill overlooking the Pacific stands a cenotaph for
whales, where local fishermen pray for their souls in an annual ceremony in
April.
''We are not killing them as a hobby,'' the cooperative official said. He
argues that humans cannot sustain themselves without taking the lives of other
living things.
For the local fishermen, the film is not a documentary but is propaganda of the
dolphin conservationists.
In addition to violating some local individuals' portrait rights by shooting
the film using hidden cameras and microphones, the fishermen claim that the
film contains factual errors, such as saying in it that dolphin meat is sold as
whale meat in the town.
The official said his group has been seeking the cancellation of its screenings
for fear that it would spread the wrong image about dolphin hunts, but admitted
feeling powerless.
''We are a small fishing cooperative and have no measures to counter the film.''
Meanwhile, a member of the cooperative said he has ''mixed feelings'' about the
planned screenings of the film having been canceled in Japan earlier this year
due to loud protests from a Tokyo group who claims that the film is
anti-Japanese.
Although he is opposed to the film itself because it ''misunderstands'' dolphin
hunts, he believes the protesters' group ''does not represent the fishermen's
feelings.''
The Yokohama District Court has banned the group from staging protests around a
movie theater in Yokohama, which is one of the six theaters planning to screen
the film from Saturday.
The court decision on the injunction June 24 prohibits making loud speeches
within a 100-meter radius of the movie theater and entering the movie theater
without permission, according to the distributor Unplugged Inc.
The Tokyo District Court issued a similar injunction Thursday to ban protests
around a movie theater in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward. The theater will start showing
''The Cove'' as scheduled on Saturday, Unplugged said.
Despite the continued controversy over the film, residents of Taiji, other than
fishermen, seemed mostly nonchalant.
''No matter what someone might say, it won't change what we have been eating
from the old days,'' said Hiroyuki Hata, 63.
''When the hunting season comes, I will eat dolphin again. Because they are
tasty,'' he said, and laughed cheerfully.
Dolphin is also eaten in the neighboring town of Nachikatsuura.
In restaurant ''Ogawa,'' located near Katsuura port, raw dolphin meat, priced
at 1,050 yen, was on the menu, along with whale dishes.
Served on sliced onions with ginger-flavored soy sauce, fatty and chewy raw
dolphin meat slices taste similar to whale.
Yoneko Ogawa, 69, proprietor of the restaurant, said the number of customers
has recently been on the rise, with young people coming from outside the
prefecture, possibly because local dolphin hunting became more widely known due
to controversy over the film.
''I hope people will try to learn about an unfamiliar food culture,'' she said.
Meanwhile, local assemblyman Mikio Enomoto said he is afraid the town's whaling
and dolphin hunt might die out in the future under pressure from foreign
countries.
''The Cove'' will be shown at six theaters in Tokyo, Osaka, Sendai, Yokohama,
Kyoto and Hachinohe in Aomori Prefecture beginning Saturday. They will be
followed by cinemas in 16 other locations across Japan, including Hiroshima,
Nagoya, Fukuoka and Okinawa.
==Kyodo
2010-07-02 23:40:43


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