ONODA – 10.000 Nächte im Dschungel

In the organizer's words:

ONODA, 10 000 nuits dans la jungle

ONODA 一万夜を越えて ONODA, Ichimanya o koete

Director: Arthur Harari
France, Japan, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Cambodia
2021, 167 minutes, original language, DCP

1944, Japan is at war. The 22-year-old Onoda Hirō, who has been trained for the intelligence service, is instructed by his superior Major Taniguchi in a philosophy that runs counter to the official line: no kamikaze commandos, but all that matters is staying alive - at all costs. Onoda is sent to Lubang - a small island in the Philippines. Here he is to wage a "secret war" with a handful of soldiers until the Japanese troops return, but the Americans are about to land. The Japanese Empire will surrender soon afterwards, Onoda follows his orders for 10,000 days as he continues to believe that the war is still going on and that the Allies are trying to force him to surrender with false information.

Text: Rapid Eye Movies

Film series
The value of remembering
Japanese films against forgetting

In the current time of change, remembering and commemorating the past is more important than ever. In 2024, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Japanese anti-nuclear weapons organization "Nihon Hidankyo", a grassroots movement of survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The Norwegian Nobel Committee's citation states that the group, founded in 1956, was awarded the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for having shown through testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.

Japanese film history also addresses the suffering and hardships that people had to contend with in connection with the war. The film series shows works by renowned directors that focus on the fate of individual people.

It begins with a family story based on the notes of a doctor(Kono ko o nokoshite). Music plays an important role in a Japanese soldier's fight for survival (Biruma no tategoto) and on an island, a teacher cares for her pupils(Nijûshi no hitomi). A docudrama depicts true events about a traveling theater group (Sakuratai chiru), followed by the story of a girl who folds cranes in the face of death(Senbazuru). A film about the skull of a kamikaze pilot(Fûon) and a production inspired by the historical figure Onoda Hirô(ONODA, Ichimanya o koete) conclude the program.