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A spectre is haunting Japan. It is that of the revolution embodied by Masao Adachi, the legendary filmmaker and activist who shook the foundations of Japanese cinema and fought for the liberation of Palestine. It is also that of Satoshi Kirishima, an anti-imperialist terrorist who, since 1974, has been one of the most wanted men in his country. In January 2024, Kirishima, who had been living under a false identity for almost 50 years, died in hospital, but not before revealing his true name. The enigma of a life spent in hiding led Adachi to return to filmmaking following his profound Revolution+1. The result is his most moving, elegiac and restrained film, though it retains the guerrilla fervour of all his previous work. Adachi constructs an enthusiastic tribute to Kirishima and to those who, like him, gave their all and sacrificed their lives to bring about a better world. At the same time, it offers a reflection on our capacity to rebel (and liberate ourselves) against an all-encompassing system of control, on resistance, and on what it means to remain faithful to one’s ideals until the very end. For Kirishima, ‘escaping’ did not mean retreating, but rather taking up the fight on other fronts. His indomitable spirit now also lives on in the film by another tireless fighter, Masao Adachi, who continues to stir consciences with cinema that is, in both form and substance, defiant and, this time, hopeful. GABRIEL DOMÉNECH GONZÁLEZ
BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1939, Adachi was a student of the Department of Film, Faculty of Arts, Nihon University. After dropping out of university, he joined Wakamatsu Koji’s independent production and mass produced scripts for radical pink films that took on sex and revolution as their central themes. On the way back from Cannes Film Festival in 1971, he went to Palestine, joined the guerilla faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and shot and directed The Red Army / PFLP: Declaration of World War. He was marked by Interpol as a wanted person. In 1997, he was placed in detention at the Roumieh prison in Lebanon and then deported back to Japan. In 2006, he sat back down on the director’s chair for the first time in 35 years to make Prisoner/Terrorist, relaunching his artistic career in Japan. His penultimate film, Revolution+1, won the Best Film Award at FILMADRID 2024.

Japón, 2025. 114 min.
Prod: Yu Hirano.
Guion: Masao Adachi.
Music: Yoshihide Otomo.
Edición: Tomoko Hiruta.
Foto: Yutaka Yamazaki.
Intérpretes: Kanji Furutachi, Rairu Sugita, Eriko Nakamura, Soran Tamoto, Mutsuo Yoshioka, Yuya Matsuura, Yohta Kawase, Tomomitsu Adachi.

XII Edición