United Red Army

This film brilliantly reconstructs the most troubling episode in the bloody history of Japanese student-radical extremism through the true story of the United Red Army faction, which had its roots in the 60s when Japanese students protested America using Japan as a staging base for its war in Vietnam. In 1972, 14 members of the United Red Army faction lynched each other during group “self-criticism” sessions while training in the mountains and the survivors holed up at the Asama Sanso Mountain Lodge, which quickly degenerated into a ten-day stand-off with the police. Wakamatsu’s film is an earnest attempt to process the shock that the Japanese Left was experiencing at the time and to grasp the motivation of the militant students.
Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.
Script: Koji Wakamatsu, Masayuki Kakegawa, Asako Otomo
Cinematography: Tomohiko Tsuji, Yoshihisa Toda
Sound: Yukio Kubota
Music: Jim O’ Rourke
Actors: MiekoToyama (Maki Sakai), Hiroshi Sakaguchi (Arata), Hiroko Nagata (Akie Namiki), Tsuneo Mori (Go Jibiki), Fusako Shigenobu (Anri Ban)
Production: Wakamatsu Production, Japan T. +81 3 3341 7328 F. +81 3 3341 7361 otomo@yugakusha.co.jp www.united-red-army.com
Producers: Koji Wakamatsu
Format: 35mm Color
Production Country: Japan
Production Year: 2007
Duration: 190
Contact: Dissidenz International, France T. +33 1 4277 8820 F. +33 1 4277 8819 bqtran@dissidenz-intl.com www.dissidenz-intl.com

Kōji Wakamatsu

Kōji Wakamatsu was born in 1936 in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. He directed his first film in 1963. In 1965, a German distributor who happened to be in Japan appreciated his film Secrets Behind the Wall and recommended it to the Berlin IFF. The Federation of Japanese Film Producers felt that it was a national disgrace for Japanese cinema to be represented by a “pink eiga” – an erotic film– and so they boycotted the film festival. In 1965, Wakamatsu founded his own production company and has directed more than one hundred films throughout his career.

Filmography

1965 Secrets behind the Wall
1966 The Embryo Hunts in Secret
1968 Violated Angels
1969 Go, Go Second Time Virgin
1970 Shinjuku Mad
1970 Sex Jack
1972 Ecstasy of the Angels
1977 Torture Chronicles Continues: 100 Years
1982 A Pool Without Water
1989 It's Easier Than Kissing
1993 Singapore Sling
1997 End of Our Own Reality
2004 Perfect Education 6
2007 United Red Army
2012 The Millennial Rapture