I have a real personal connection to the documentary The Cove. Besides immedietly feeling sympathy for the filmmakers and the subject material after watching the movie, I had the privlidge of talking to director Louis Psyihoyos and star and famed dolphin trainer Richard O'Barry on more than one occasion, and when you talk to them, you can't help but feel for their cause.
With both of those gentleman, when you hear the passion for the film and the banning of the slaughter of dolphins, you have to cheer for them. On both occasions, our talks turned to getting the message out to the Japanese people to stop the horrible slaughter depicted in the movie, and how hard they were working to get the video viewed. It looked as if that was going to happen when it was announced The Cove would be in Japanese theaters despite opposition. However, after several death threats, the movie will be pulled from theaters, and it seems, just like that, the hopes of these two passionate people and the fans of the movie get dashed.
It wasn't enough for them to win an Academy Award, or win awards at every film festival they attended, or even get extremely high marks from a certain Creative Loafing movie critic; they made it clear, their real goal was to get the message to the people who needed to see it. While I know this will not stop Psihoyos or O'Barry, O'Barry did say about the pulling of the movie "It's not right that a small minority of extremists could take this right away from them, to do so is a clear threat to democracy."
The movie did show at the Tokyo Film Festival in the fall, and is currently the only time it was shown in Japan. The movie didn't even show on U.S. military bases, all because they didn't want to cause a fuss. Or was it something else?
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