Issue:
July 2023
Join the Film Committee
Join us on Wednesday, July 5 at 6 pm for a special screening and Q&A session with newly honored Cannes Best Actor winner Koji Yakusho. Marking the Film Committee’s first event with streaming powerhouse Netflix, we will be screening two episodes of the intensely dramatic eight-episode series The Days, produced in Japan but available to subscribers in more than 190 countries and regions. The series, created and produced by Jun Masumoto, probes the March 11 triple disaster from the points of view of the workers on site at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the government and TEPCO (called TOEPCO in the series), illuminating the challenges of each group as they scramble to respond to the growing crisis. Based primarily on the nonfiction book On the Brink: The Inside Story of Fukushima Daiichi by Ryusho Kadota – as was the hit film Fukushima 50 (screened at FCCJ in 2020) – The Days stays grounded in reality, delivering both visceral excitement and character complexity throughout its many tense and harrowing scenes. Yakusho stars as the protagonist, based on the real-life site superintendent of Fukushima Daiichi. Yutaka Takenouchi plays the shift supervisor in charge of the control room (a composite character); and Fumiyo Kohinata stars as the prime minister. Yakusho and Masumoto will be on hand for a Q&A session after the screening. (Japan, 2023, 106 minutes/two episodes, in Japanese with English subtitles).
Karen Severns is chair of the FCCJ film committee
