Me and the Cult Leader - A Modern Report on the Banality of Evil

Atsushi Sakahara / Japan / 2020 / East European Premiere / 114 min.

synopsis

On March 20, 1995, members of the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo religious cult released deadly sarin gas in five Tokyo subway stations. Twelve people died. Among the hundreds of others who suffered long-term complications was the film's director Atsushi Sakahara. After more than twenty years, he decided to find out who was behind the attacks. He managed to convince a man who is still associated with the active movement to appear in a film. Through inconsequential conversation, the filmmaker slowly gains his trust so that he can confront him about the trauma that he has caused him. An intimate debate about the banality and inconspicuousness of evil shows how long the road to truth and redemption can be.

“I promised my high school classmate that I would become a respected director. But he committed suicide, and I blamed myself for not being able to stop him. For the next thirty years, I tried to keep my promise. After the sarin attack, my determination grew even stronger.” A. Sakahara

Q&A with the director Atsushi Sakahara:

biography

Japanese director, writer, and businessman Atsushi Sakahara (1966) joined an advertising agency after studying economics at Kyoto University. He then earned a master's degree from the University of California. He is the producer of the Cannes award-winning short film Bean Cake (2001) and the author of several bestselling books. He began working on his feature-length debut, Me and the Cult Leader, in 2015.

more about film

director:	Atsushi Sakahara
cast:	Hiroshi Araki, Takeshi Sakahara
producer:	Atsushi Sakahara
script:	Atsushi Sakahara
photography:	Tatsuya Yamada, Masato Takashima
sound:	Ryoma Ochiai
co-producer:	Pearl Chan