Oscar Winning Documentary 'The Cove' Faces Serious Protests

The Cove, an Oscar-winning documentary dealing with the slaughter of dolphins in Japan, is creating serious fuss as it finally secures a release in Japan

Protests by fisherman from the town of Taji, Wakayama, Japan, the location of the annual dolphin cull, dissuaded Japanese distributors from releasing the film into cinemas. In an attempt to tackle the protesters , Unplugged Pictures, which took on the doc, agreed to pixel-out fishermen’s faces in the Japanese version, but the temper has only increased as the June 26th release date approaches. Street protests as well as  sabotage threats have insisted two theatres to cancel bookings of the film.

The rage has now intensified to right-wing activists, who say the film is unpatriotic. The Society to Seek the Restoration of Sovereignty stated that the work deliberately distorts Japanese people’s food culture, and depicting this will hurt countless people’s feelings.

Ric O’Barry,a former dolphin trainer on the TV show Flipper, whose crusade against the cull encouraged The Cove ,is reasonably disturbed. He stated that its not right that a minority of extremists could take this right away from them.Also doing so is an apparent threat to democracy.

Also,the protest has now encouraged a counter campaign by 50 film directors and journalists.Well..looks like the publicity is not likely to damage The Cove’s commercial prospects.