SHIKASHI ... FUKUSHI KIRISUTE NO JIDAI NI

However looks at the question of welfare after Yamanouchi Yoyomori, a bureaucrat, in charge of compensation for the victims of the Minamata Disease, commits suicide. A stark report on the suffering and anger of welfare recipients and the attitude of the administration towards public assistance in an age of cutting off welfare to the weak. At first there was no connection between Minamata disease and social welfare or public assistance. But when Yamanouchis career was recounted in the newspaper I realized that he was division chief of the Social Welfare Bureau of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the most important bureaucratic position in the administration of public assistance. I found that he had dedicated himself to the cause of social welfare quite beyond his role as a bureaucrat, so I decided to make him a subject of the documentary and revised my research accordingly. (Koreeda Hirokazu)