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Following the decision of three Tokyo cinemas not to screen the documentary film The Cove after the staging of noisy rallies pressuring them to cancel, a surprising turnaround took place when Takeshi Kato, the president of Unplugged, the film’s distributor, announced that six other cinemas would show the film from 3^rd July 2010 and that a further 16 cinemas were also considering holding screenings.

 The news came on the same day that fresh rallies were reported, which fuelled fears of an escalation in their intensity following the announcement of the new screenings.   The rallies, which claimed the Academy Award-winning film was anti-Japanese, were staged by a fringe nationalist group in an attempt to dissuade other cinemas from showing the film.

The decision of the cinemas to show the film came as a result of calls for it to be shown from free-speech campaigners and newspaper editorials.   On 21^st June 2010, the Tokyo-based Japan Federation of Cinema and Theatrical Workers issued an emergency appeal for the documentary’s release, stating that, ‘For theaters to succumb to threats of protests and throw out their duty as a forum of expression is a cause for alarm.’   Two newspapers, the Mainichi Shimbun and Tokyo Shimbun both carried editorials on the same day warning that failure to show the film would mean a threat to freedom of speech in Japan, something that was guaranteed under the nation’s constitution.

The rallies against the film appeared to be led by a fringe nationalist group called the Society for the Restoration of Sovereignty, which was dedicated to defending Japan against Western criticism of traditional practices such as the hunting of whales and dolphins.  The nationalists argued that the film distorted the truth and had links to Sea Shepherd, an anti-whaling organisation that had been branded a terrorist organisation by the government because of alleged militant actions it had taken against Japanese whalers.

The Yokohama New Theatre, a small cinema in a city near Tokyo which intended to screen the film in July had been subjected to a number of rallies staged outside its doors, and on 25^th June a Yokohama regional court issued a restraining order at the request of the cinema, banning protestors from staging rallies outside the cinema.   By this date at least 22 cinemas had agreed to show the film as the issue of free speech became the dominant theme of the dispute.

The first screenings of the film took place as scheduled on 3^rd July despite concerns about protests.   It was shown at six cinemas in Tokyo, Sendai, Yokohama, Kyoto, Osaka and Hachinoche, Aomori Prefecture.    Approximately 30 protestors briefly skirmished with supporters of the film outside the Theatre Image Forum cinema in Tokyo’s Shibuya ward despite a police presence.   One protestor loudly voiced his opinion through a loudhailer, claiming the film was ‘anti-Japanese.’   At Yokohama, five screaming protestors were barred from watching the film.

A spokesman for Unplugged claimed that the first showing of the film at the 100-seat cinema was a sell-out. 

By the date of the first screening, a further 18 cinemas had announced their intention of showing the film.   One of them, situated in Nagoya said it would show The Cove alongside Whalers and the Sea, a documentary film sympathetic to the whaling industry.

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