Back in 2009, The Cove came out, and it quickly became the kind of documentary that people recommended with a warning.

The warning being that your blood will boil, because there’s nothing about the Oscar winner that makes for easy viewing.

Focusing on the small Japanese fishing village of Taiji, the 400-year-old practice of dolphin hunting was panned by activists, celebrities and politicians right around the world.

When producer Fisher Stevens accepted the Oscar, he explained how the work was an “entertaining film that also tries to enlighten everybody”, and that really irked New York-based Japanese film-maker Megumi Sasaki.

She spoke to the Guardian about why she felt a follow up was needed:

Sasaki’s film, A Whale of a Tale, spans six years in and around Taiji as fishermen and activists face off, at times unpleasantly. “It’s wrong for outsiders to come in and try to destroy our history and culture,” says a whaler at one point, as protesters from the Sea Shepherd group film his comrades and hurl criticism at them. One of the activists calls a whaler a “dumbass shit”…

Sasaki, whose previous documentaries include 2008’s Herb & Dorothy, uses A Whale of a Tale to question whether progress would be better served in bridging a yawning cultural divide rather than simply shutting down the Taiji hunt…

“The Cove was a well-told story but it was so one-sided and was full of prejudice,” she says. “It was like they were pointing a camera at people who can’t raise their own voice. It’s like bullying.”

A Whale of a Tale illustrates how a sophisticated campaign by groups such as Sea Shepherd has, perhaps unsurprisingly, barely been countered in the court of public opinion by a town of barely 4,000 people.

In other words, it’s going to piss a lot of people off. Let’s see the trailer:

The film will open in New York this Friday, August 17, and around the US in the weeks that follow.

Something tells me Megumi Sasaki is going to be on the receiving end of a backlash from animal rights activists, amongst others.

[source:guardian]