THE PLEDGE TO MEGUMI

THE PLEDGE TO MEGUMI

2DORCS12
Director:NOBUSHI Shou
Cast:KASA Natsuki, HADARA Daijiro, ISHIMURA Tomoko, OTSURU Gitan
Premiere:3. March 2024
Length:102 minutes
Genre:Document, Drama

Director: NOBUSHI Shou  •  Cast: KASA Natsuki, HADARA Daijiro, ISHIMURA Tomoko, OTSURU Gitan, KOMATSU Masao

The film was made on the basis of a true story of 13-year-old Megumi Yokota who disappeared while on her way back home from school in 1977. Despite an extensive search, the Japanese police were unable to find her. Her name reappeared in the public awareness in the 1990s when Japanese society began mentioning the possibility that some people – potentially as many as several hundred – had been abducted to North Korea. The country admitted it actually kidnapped 13 people from Japan to its territory after 2000. Megumi became a symbol of the fight for these people to return home.

The film depicts the real life of those kidnapped, held under the cruel conditions of the vicious North Korean regime and hoping to return home. The developments shown in the film are an attempt at reconstructing, as precisely as possible, what may have happened on the basis of information from former North Korean agents, the families of those kidnapped, and the few lucky ones who got back home from North Korea. If Megumi is alive, she is adult now and maybe has children of her own. Her mother, aged 87 now, has only a tiny bit of hope left to ever meet her daughter again. She has not given up, though, and waits for her daughter to return all the time. The father who dedicated all his life to ensuring that Megumi would return did not live to see a happy ending to the story.

The screening will be introduced by the director of the film, Nobushi Shou, who will also present Project M and its mission. Megumi's classmate Mr. Ikeda will also be a special guest.

©2020 "The Pledge to Megumi" Film Production Committee

Length: 102 min

Year: 2021
Local premiere date: 3. March 2024

Country of origin:

  • Japan

Director: NOBUSHI Shou  •  Cast: KASA Natsuki, HADARA Daijiro, ISHIMURA Tomoko, OTSURU Gitan, KOMATSU Masao

The film was made on the basis of a true story of 13-year-old Megumi Yokota who disappeared while on her way back home from school in 1977. Despite an extensive search, the Japanese police were unable to find her. Her name reappeared in the public awareness in the 1990s when Japanese society began mentioning the possibility that some people – potentially as many as several hundred – had been abducted to North Korea. The country admitted it actually kidnapped 13 people from Japan to its territory after 2000. Megumi became a symbol of the fight for these people to return home.

The film depicts the real life of those kidnapped, held under the cruel conditions of the vicious North Korean regime and hoping to return home. The developments shown in the film are an attempt at reconstructing, as precisely as possible, what may have happened on the basis of information from former North Korean agents, the families of those kidnapped, and the few lucky ones who got back home from North Korea. If Megumi is alive, she is adult now and maybe has children of her own. Her mother, aged 87 now, has only a tiny bit of hope left to ever meet her daughter again. She has not given up, though, and waits for her daughter to return all the time. The father who dedicated all his life to ensuring that Megumi would return did not live to see a happy ending to the story.

The screening will be introduced by the director of the film, Nobushi Shou, who will also present Project M and its mission. Megumi's classmate Mr. Ikeda will also be a special guest.

©2020 "The Pledge to Megumi" Film Production Committee

Year: 2021
Local premiere date: 3. March 2024

Country of origin:

  • Japan