USHIKU

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Must-See Documentary Sheds Light on Lives in Limbo

Venue: Theater Image Forum
From Feb. 26 (Sat), 2022 - April 22, 2022.
Official website: www.ushikufilm.com/en/
Theater website: www.imageforum.co.jp/theatre/
Theater website: www.imageforum.co.jp/theatre/movies/5064/
Trailer: https://youtu.be/HadlfyQ-dH8
Tariff:  General: ¥1,800 / College students and seniors: ¥1,300 / High school and junior high school students or under and members: ¥1,100. Fees will be changed from April 1, 2022
Advance tickets: http://www.imageforum-reserve.jp/imfr/schedule/
Talk event: Visit theater website for details.

Title: 牛久 (Ushiku)
Director: Ian Thomas Ash (イアン・トーマス・アッシュ)
Duration: 87 min

Thomas Ash’s eye-opening, gut-wrenching documentary Ushiku opens at Image Forum this weekend, with English and Japanese subtitles. It’s the single most important film you will see this year, and if you can bring along a Japanese friend to share the experience with, all the better. The film takes viewers inside the infamous Higashi-Nihon Immigration Center in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, the largest of Japan’s 17 detention centers, which housed close to 1,000 men and women prior to the pandemic. Bypassing the media blackout imposed by the government, Ushiku allows detainees themselves to share their harrowing testimonies of incarceration and mental and physical abuse with the world.

You may recall the shocking death of a young Sri Lankan woman, Wishma Rathnayake, in detention last year, after immigration authorities had refused her persistent pleas to see a doctor. And you’ve surely heard the news that Japan is alone among G7 nations in refusing a colossal 99 percent of applications for refugee status annually, despite its commitment to contribute to ameliorating the global refugee crisis.

Since 2004, when a provisional stay system was implemented, refugees have been allowed to remain in Japan for 8 months while their applications are being considered. But they receive no government assistance, are forbidden to work and are prohibited from crossing prefectural borders. When their applications for asylum or permanent citizenship are inevitably rejected, they are either forcibly deported or thrust into detention centers. With their lives in legal limbo as they languish for months or even years, many have been driven to go on hunger strikes (a health-ruining move that may lead to a provisional release) or to attempt suicide. Over the past decade, more than a dozen deaths have occurred.

Before the arrival of COVID-19, Thomas Ash was volunteering at Ushiku to support detained asylum seekers when he began to realize there would be greater impetus for drastically needed change if the public could hear (better yet, see) the detainees’ stories of being treated as hardened criminals, refused access to healthcare and visitors, and stripped of basic human rights.

An award-winning documentarian who focuses on hard-hitting issues that the mainstream ignores, Ash decided to take the unprecedented step of secretly recording his meetings with nine of the detainees who were willing to share their experiences with him on camera. He did this for several months, also filming outside the center, as he meets the men who have been granted two-week provisional releases before they have to report back to detention.

While their backgrounds vary, the detainees’ stories share shocking similarities, particularly concerning the callous disregard with which they’re treated by guards. One of the most disturbing moments of Ushiku occurs when a group of guards restrain a detainee and press down on his neck, evoking the murder of George Floyd. “It would have been better to have died in our country,” says one of the refugees, “than to suffer here like this.”

Most of the men and women at Ushiku, as well as the other centers, were provisionally released in late 2020 to avoid Covid outbreaks, allowing one of the detainees, Deniz, to work with Ash and opposition Diet members to press for reforms. One of the film’s most riveting scenes takes viewers inside a Diet session during which the government is debating controversial reforms to the immigration law that would allow the forcible deportation of those who failed to qualify for asylum after two attempts.

The measure did not (yet) pass, but the fight for greater justice continues. It needs our help, and watching Ushiku is a first step in the right direction.

Theater Image Forum

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