ME AND THE CULT LEADER: A MODERN REPORT ON THE BANALITY OF EVIL

Survivor and Perpetrator Meet, Talk and Begin to Heal

Venue(s): Theater Image Forum
From Mar. 20 (Sat), 2021 -May 7, 2021
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Official website: www.aganai.net
Theater website: www.imageforum.co.jp/theatre/movies/4154/
Tariff: General: ￥1,800 / College students and seniors: ￥1,300 / High school and junior high school students or under and members: ￥1,100
Advance tickets: http://www.imageforum-reserve.jp/imfr/schedule/

Title: AGANAI 地下鉄サリン事件と私 (AGANAI Chikatetsu Sarin Jiken to Watashi)
Director: Atsushi Sakahara (さかはらあつし)
Duration: 114 min

March 20, 2021 marks the 26th anniversary of Japan’s most infamous act of domestic terrorism, the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway by doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo. The tragedy left 13 dead and another 6,000 with long-term side effects, both physical and psychological, including Atsushi Sakahara. His insightful, thought-provoking documentary Me and the Cult Leader: A Modern Report on the Banality of Evil is an important reminder that an ongoing dialogue is essential for overcoming both individual and national trauma.

The film, which traveled widely on the international festival circuit last year, was to open on the 25th anniversary of the sarin attack, but the pandemic pushed back its release. It will be playing with English subs throughout its run, and the English-fluent director will also welcome members of Tokyo’s international community who have watched the film for online Q&A sessions in English on March 30 (8:00-8:40pm JST) and April 9 (8:00-8:40pm JST). See below for link details.

Years after the 1995 attack, the government finally passed a special law providing healthcare for sarin gas attacks victims, but it does not cover those suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Although Aum founder Shoko Asahara was executed in 2018, the cult continues to recruit and operate today as Aleph.

Sakahara began work on a documentary in 2015, after spending a year convincing Aleph PR executive Hiroshi Araki (a fellow alum of Kyoto University) to speak with him on camera. Me and the Cult Leader: A Modern Report on the Banality of Evil is both road trip and extended conversation, with Sakahara prodding Araki gently, persistently and with no small amount of humor, to explain his decisions to join Aum, to continue being a member and most of all, to continue denying that Asahara could possibly have been implicit in the attack.

In the film, the unlikely pair journey to Kyoto University and to one another’s nearby hometowns, pausing to take in the scenery and to skip stones, but never veering far from the subject at hand. “Explain it to me,” Sakahara fairly pleads, after Araki has dodged his questions for the umpteenth time. “It’s with me 24/7.” He also pleads with the cultist to go visit his parents — whom he had renounced, as members are expected to do — in 1994, soon after joining Aum. (He did not participate in planning the gas attack.)

Online Q&As in English:

Sakahara has made numerous attempts to understand the events that impacted his, and others’, lives so profoundly, including writing a book about the cult and running a podcast with the film’s Hong Kong-based co-producer, Pearl Chan, called Before After Aum.
https://www.aganai.net/beforeafteraum

The online Q&A sessions for English-speaking audience members will be announced via the same site 20 minutes before they start. See www.aganai.net/home.

Talk dates:
March 30 (8:00-8:40pm JST)
April 9 (8:00-8:40pm JST)

Theater Image Forum

Venue: Theater Image Forum
From March 20, 2021
Official website: www.aganai.net