Issue:
. . . at 6:30 pm on Thursday, Dec. 3, for a sneak preview screening of Persona Non Grata, the story of Chiune Sugihara, the brave diplomat whose singular act of defiance against his superiors in the Foreign Ministry saved the lives of close to 6,000 Jews during the Holocaust. In the sumptuously shot international coproduction, we first see the multilingual Sugihara (Toshiaki Karasawa) negotiating Japan’s acquisition of the vital Manchurian railway link that enables the establishment of Manchuko. For this, he is declared “persona non grata” by Russia and forbidden re-entry to the country. On the eve of war in 1939, Sugihara arrives in still-independent Lithuania, and by July 1940 has made the historic decision that he can no longer ignore the hordes of Jewish refugees who are fleeing the Nazis. Abetted by two Dutch diplomats, these brave men of conscience refuse to just follow orders, and provide unapproved transit visas through Japan to the Dutch Caribbean island Curaçao — a heroic act that has finally received a big screen treatment.
(Japan, 2015; 139 minutes; English, Russian, Japanese with Japanese subtitles.)
