Um, You Mind If We Screen That?
This video explains the gist: Yasukuni is a documentary about the infamous shrine which enshrines war-criminals, and the attitudes and beliefs it evokes. Oh, and a Chinese dude directed it. You can see where this is going.
LDP members recently got a little antsy and requested a preview screening of the film, which the Japanese government itself provided some of the funding for via the Japan Arts Council’s use of the Japan Arts Fund.
Recently the Japan Times reported:
A documentary film on Tokyo’s war-related Yasukuni Shrine was given a prerelease screening in the capital Wednesday at the request of Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers who are concerned it may be “anti-Japan.”The distributor of the film “Yasukuni” had argued that such a screening would be tantamount to censorship, but accepted the request later on condition that the screening would be open to every Diet member and not just to a certain group of lawmakers.
The film, to be released in April, received ¥7.5 million in grant money from the Japan Arts Council under the Cultural Affairs Agency.
One kinda feels like busting out the popcorn just to see the politician’s reactions.
More than 80 people including 40 lawmakers from the ruling and opposition parties attended the screening of the film on the Tokyo shrine, which honors convicted war criminals along with the war dead. Japanese leaders’ visits to the shrine have been repeatedly criticized by China, South Korea and other Asian countries.“I attended the screening just to see if this film should have received a government subsidy,” said Tomomi Inada, a House of Representatives member from the LDP who requested the pre-release screening.
“I do not intend to censor this film but I do wonder if this is a politically neutral Japanese film that should have received a subsidy,” Inada said.
Inada said she will discuss the issue of the subsidy with officials of the cultural affairs agency Thursday.
Is that all the LDP member’s reactions amounted to: a whimper about how maybe the government shouldn’t provide money to political documentaries? I was expecting more drama.
Not much more info is out there in translated media at this time, and this Japanese article offers no different tidbits, save for the line “Can we really call this a Japanese movie [considering the Chinese influence]?”
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Typical Japanese solution to an international problem:
Keep mouth shut, make it look objective by using a foreign face, and throw $$$ at it.
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It’s hardly censorship if government subsidies are withdrawn or simply not granted. Contrast such a withdrawal of subsidies (were it to hypothetically happen in this case) to what occurs in China all the time.
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I say that if it isn’t going to deal with the issue fairly the film makers shouldn’t be subsidized. Some might argue with that, but people would be up in arms if film makers like Michael Moore received government checks for their art.
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Incidentally, who decides what is “fairly”?
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“yasukumi” lol
anyway judging from this interview it doesn’t sound like it’s necessarily the kind of anti-Japanese propaganda you usually associate with China… Maybe it’s a reasonable and balanced film.
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I don’t think gov’t monies should go towards movies/documentaries but I think money going towards public works involving the arts is fine.
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Those who are for using the tax for Art must explain why the tax payers have to support the enemies’ propaganda by supporting their Art to express their position.
Or you can give me your signed consent allow me to withdraw all your money from your bank accounts.
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The problem with government support of the arts is, who decides what art is deemed supportable. If the government decides, then it is technically propaganda. You need a group who are on the payroll, but who’s decision can not be revoked by the government; the group should be nominated by artists and individuals not be approved by the government if they satisfy basic criteria laid down by a 3d party (e.g., education, work, etc.)
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That’s just logical: yasukumi + yasuki = yasukuni!
If the diet members watch the movie now for the first time, it sounds to me that this movie is made quite independent.
What wonders me the most is that a movie with such an important content gets just around 75′000 dollars.
Here in switzerland they are paying 800′000 dollars for an art movie (pepperminta) and 1′300′000 (of 28 millions from other culture funds) for an animation movie (Max & co.).
The animation movie totally flopped. Isn’t that just a great waste of tax money?
I don’t know what other movies get in Japan but I think this wasn’t much of a help. (sorry for the length!)
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what most people don’t know is that the yasukuni shrine was not made just for those infamous war criminals of WWII. it also houses the memories and shrines for all the people who have lost their lives in Japanese battles and civil wars from way before WWII. about 90% of Yasukuni is dedicated to people that had nothing to do with the atrocities of what happened in Asia during WWII. most are of the countless young Kamikaze pilots that lost their lives to the war. i personally do not think such people as Hideki Tojo and others should be allowed to have their memory honored there. But if Americans and everyone else want to take down the Yasukuni because of some of it’s members’ ties to war crimes, then I think the Vietnam war memorials should be taken down too. Didn’t America do inhumane things in Vietnam???
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I don’t think anyone is suggesting tearing it down.