Film symposium marks 60 years since Niigata Minamata disease outbreak
To mark 60 years since Japan's second major mercury poisoning outbreak, a group of activists gathered in Tokyo last month to revisit the history of Minamata disease through a medium long used to document it: film.
The symposium held by the Tokyo Association to Indict [Those Responsible for] Minamata Disease on May 31 marked the anniversary of the discovery of Niigata Minamata Disease. The condition came to light nine years after an identical industrial poisoning in Minamata, a city in Kumamoto Prefecture.
The event featured a screening of 'Fighting Pollution: Niigata Minamata Disease,' a 1968 documentary produced by Nihon Denpa News, along with a compilation of recent news clips about what activists have called the '2024 mic-off incident.' The term refers to a government meeting in which survivors advocating for expanded compensation were abruptly cut off when their microphones were turned off.
Following the screenings, Takeko Kato, secretary general of the activist group Hope, Future, Minamata, appeared on a panel with three survivors. 'The incident reveals that the Minamata disease is not truly over,' Kato said, referring to the mic-off footage.
One of the most influential documentary voices in the Minamata movement was director Noriaki Tsuchimoto. In 1965, he made a short television segment for Nippon TV about congenital Minamata disease victims. He later returned to the topic in his 1971 documentary 'Minamata: The Victims and Their World.'
'That film set down a standard that other people followed,' said Markus Nornes, a professor of Asian cinema at the University of Michigan. 'There's no question that Tsuchimoto's approach to documentary, which is self-consciously ethical, had this oversized influence.'
Tsuchimoto went on to produce 16 more films on the subject. His work later inspired director Kazuo Hara, who in 2020 released a six-hour cinema verite piece dedicated to Tsuchimoto, who died in 2008. Hara is known for exploring Japan's political margins, including disability activists in 'Goodbye CP' (1972) and former soldiers in 'The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On' (1987). His three-part 'Minamata Mandala' (2020) took two decades to complete.
'I spent 20 difficult years working with Minamata activists,' the 79-year-old director said in a closing statement at the symposium. 'It was terribly shocking to learn others have spent 60.'
A year after Hara's documentary, 'Minamata' — a Hollywood biopic starring Johnny Depp as American photojournalist W. Eugene Smith — opened in Japanese theaters. Smith's spouse, Aileen Mioko Smith, who began photographing Minamata disease victims in 1971, continues to advocate for survivors.
Hara is now working on a follow-up to 'Minamata Mandala,' which he hopes to release by September 2027. The sequel comes as negotiations between survivors' groups and the government remain stalled.
'We will meet again with the environment minister on July 30 to advocate for broader compensation,' said Yoichi Tani, secretary general of the Minamata Disease Victims Mutual Aid Association. 'But frankly speaking, we have made no progress.'
The Environment Ministry currently identifies survivors eligible for compensation based on criteria developed in 1977 that activists claim are unscientific and restrictive. Supporters of expanded recognition hope Hara's forthcoming documentary will help renew public attention and sympathy.
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