Documentaries by Kazuo Hara and Sachiko Kobayashi
5 Episodes
Shocking, confrontational, and made with white-hot fury, these radical documentaries—directed by Kazuo Hara and produced by his wife and longtime creative partner, Sachiko Kobayashi—give voice to the outsiders and iconoclasts who wage war with the conformism of modern Japanese society. From a woman willing to risk everything on her journey toward personal and sexual liberation (EXTREME PRIVATE EROS: LOVE SONG 1974) to a man whose quest to expose Japanese wartime atrocities borders on madness (THE EMPEROR’S NAKED ARMY MARCHES ON), the unforgettable subjects of these films are invited to be collaborators in Hara and Kobayashi’s process, resulting in works of unmatched power and immediacy.
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1:23:22Episode 1Goodbye CP
Episode 1
Directed by Kazuo Hara • 1972 • Japan
Starring Hiroshi Yokota, Koichi YokozukaAn early documentary to portray the experiences of disabled people with compassion and complexity, Kazuo Hara’s searing debut is also one of the most unflinching films ever made about what it means to be an outsider. ...
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1:33:12Episode 2Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974
Episode 2
Directed by Kazuo Hara • 1974 • Japan
Starring Miyuki Takeda, Sachiko Kobayashi, Kazuo HaraWhen his wife, the outspoken feminist Miyuki Takeda, announced that she was leaving him in order to find herself, Kazuo Hara began this raw, intensely personal documentary as a way to both maintain a conn...
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2:01:20Episode 3The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On
Episode 3
Directed by Kazuo Hara • 1987 • Japan
Made with a righteous political anger that anticipates the incendiary polemics of documentarians such as Michael Moore and Joshua Oppenheimer, Kazuo Hara’s most renowned film is a harrowing confrontation with one of Japanese history’s darkest chapters: the a...
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2:37:06Episode 4A Dedicated Life
Episode 4
Directed by Kazuo Hara • 1994 • Japan
Starring Mitsuharu Inoue, Hiroshi Noma, Jakuchô SetouchiKazuo Hara’s interest in iconoclastic figures living in opposition to mainstream society led him to begin work on A DEDICATED LIFE, an intimate, fly-on-the-wall portrait of the controversial writer Mit...
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3:34:39Episode 5Sennan Asbestos Disaster
Episode 5
Directed by Kazuo Hara • 2016 • Japan
Made over the course of ten years, this epic work of activist cinema joins the citizens of Sennan, Osaka, as they embark on an unprecedented uphill legal battle to receive reparations from the government for exposing their community to the deadly toxins of t...