The bureaucrat who secretly rewrote history while nobody was watching.
In 2010, while covering the issue of the "secret agreement" at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the author came across diplomatic documents relating to the reversion of Okinawa and was particularly impressed by the handwritten documents of Kazuo Chiba, then Director of the North American First Division at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which, unlike ordinary bureaucrats, "stood out from the crowd and seemed unique". The name of Chiba subsequently appeared in a number of documents left by former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato's secretary, and the author became interested in finding out what kind of person he was.
Direction
Yanagawa turns file cabinets into sacred spaces.
Writing
Chiba's handwritten notes carry more tension than most action sequences.
Director
Tsuyoshi Yanagawa
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The 'secret agreement' refers to covert U.S.-Japan deals allowing nuclear weapons transit through Okinawa—a taboo topic that broke open Japanese diplomatic historiography in the 2000s.
Arata Iura, who portrays Chiba, previously starred in Hirokazu Kore-eda's 'After Life'—another film about memory, documents, and what we choose to preserve.
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