Osaka film pulled in dispute over authentic slums

Japan's biggest slum is visible just blocks from bustling restaurants and shops in Osaka, the country's second-largest city. But it cannot be found on official maps.

Nor did it appear in the recent Osaka Asian Film Festival, after the director of a new movie that is set in the area pulled it, accusing city organizers of censorship.

Osaka officials asked Shingo Ota to remove scenes and lingo that identify the slum, on the grounds that it was insensitive to residents.

"To me, what they were asking was a coverup attempt to make this place nonexistent," he said in a recent interview.

This place is Kamagasaki, home to day laborers, the jobless and homeless, where one in three are on welfare. About 25,000 people live in this compact area, mostly single men who stay in free shelters or dozens of cheap dorms that charge as little as 800 yen ($8) a night.

"I'm jobless for months," said one 52-year-old resident who came to Kamagasaki after losing his home in the 1995 Kobe earthquake. He gambled away his monthly welfare money of 70,000 yen. "Now I'm doomed."

Ota's movie, Fragile, tells the story of a TV assistant director who takes off from his job one day after conflicts with his girlfriend and his colleague. He heads to Kamagasaki to make a film about a teenage boy, and whether success and wealth are necessary for happiness. But he quickly falls into trouble, and his plan unravels.

The full-length feature shows recognizable landmarks of the slum, such as a park known for both squatters and illegal garbage dumping and the center where men line up for jobs. It also shows the protagonist receiving an amphetamine injection from a drug dealer operating in the slum. Ota said Osaka officials wanted those scenes and others deleted, as well as the slang words "doya", or cheap accommodations, and "shabu", stimulants.

'Loving neighborhood'

Osaka official Kazumitsu Oue said the film festival organizers wanted to protect the area and its people from exposure to prejudice. "We felt that the film lacked consideration to the area and its people," he said.

Ota said while living there to shoot the film for several weeks, his impression of the slum as a poor, dangerous place changed and he began to regard the community - also known by the nickname Airin or "loving neighborhood" - and its inhabitants with more compassion. The scenes city officials objected to are needed to portray the different faces of the town, he said.

The city provided a 600,000-yen grant for the director on condition that it premieres at the Osaka film festival. Ota said he has offered to return the grant, but the city wanted him to keep it and not disclose details of the dispute to the media. The two sides were examining the dispute and seeking ways to explain it to the public.

During Japan's economic boom in the 1960s and 1970s, Kamagasaki bustled with hundreds of thousands of young day laborers. But the day labor market shrank after Japan's stock and real estate bubble burst in 1990, and again during the more recent global financial crisis.

In the world's fastest graying nation, the challenge of aging is layered on top of economic decline. Nearly 40 percent of the residents of Kamagasaki are 65 or older, nearly twice elsewhere.

"Many day laborers in the area can't keep up with construction work as they get old," said Yoshinori Kishi, an Osaka city official in charge of support and welfare of day laborers in the area.

In recent years, there have been some improvements, thanks to job support, anti-crime and beautification programs, including one that aims to turn the neighborhood into a backpackers' hangout like Bangkok's Khaosan road.

Masanori Momiyama, 50, runs a tiny bar on the edge of the slum. He has seen its residents age since he moved here 16 years ago.

"They are the ones who helped to construct many buildings and roads in the 1960s. I think we should thank them," he said.