“Whale Restaurant” A Controversial Documentary is screening from Fri.Sep.13. in the USA!

Los Angeles: Friday, September 13 – Laemmle
New York: Saturday, September 21 – Apollo theater

YAGI Film, Inc. (Shibuya-ku, Tokyo), a film production and distribution company, will screen the documentary film “Whale Restaurant – Inconvenient Food” in the USA. starting Friday, September 13, with its first screening in Los Angeles. The film, which claims that “whale hunting is good for the environment,” will also be shown at the historic Apollo Theater in New York, fulfilling a long-awaited event.

Director Keiko Yagi announced the production of “Behind THE COVE” (2015), which became the talk of the town as a rebuttal film to “The Cove,” which won an Academy Award in 2010 and criticized dolphin fishing and was reported by the world’s media as “the first rebuttal from Japan.

It took Director Yagi eight years to complete “Whale Restaurant”, which depicts “the appeal of whale cuisine” and “collecting scientific data on whales” – topics that she was unable to depict in her previous film “Behind THE COVE”.

Whale eating is highly controversial, and filming at a whale restaurant proved challenging. The filmmakers initially felt it would be difficult to produce a film that accurately portrays the experience of a whale restaurant. However, a restaurant familiar with Director Yagi’s previous work Behind THE COVE granted permission for filming, allowing the completion of The Whale Restaurant.

Information on U.S. screenings is as follows.

［Los Angeles］
Sep. 13（Fri）―Sep.19（Thu）
Laemmle Monica Film Center
1332 2nd St, Santa Monica, CA
https://www.laemmle.com/film/whale-restaurant

Sep.14（Sat）
Hang on to the Dream Theater
1625 Las Palmas Hollywood, CA
https://jffla.eventive.org/films/66baa5ed60ad2f00406a2d82

［New York］
Sep.21（Sat）
Apollo Theater
253 W 125th St, New York, NY
https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/000061268F1C2865

Sep.27（Fri）-Oct.3（Thu）
Village East Cinema
181-189 2nd Ave, New York, NY
https://angelikafilmcenter.com/villageeast

【Whale Restaurant] Movie Synopsis】(77 min.)
A documentary film set in a famous whale restaurant in Japan. While most Japanese people have become from the act of whale eating, it is still a “mysterious food culture” that attracts the interest of many people in other countries. This is the first film to successfully capture the whale restaurant experience. The documentary also features internationally renowned scientists, and touches on global issues, such as the major “protein source” of our time, global warming, fossil fuels, and carbon dioxide. The director of “Shin Godzilla,” a regular customer of the whale restaurant, also appears in the film and talks about “the relationship between whales and Godzilla.

【Main actors】
Mitsuo Tani (Chef of Whale Restaurant), Shinji Higuchi (Director of “Shin Godzilla”), Eugene Lapointe (Former Executive Director of Washington Convention), Genevieve Desputes (Executive Director of NAMMCO, Scientist), Hidehiro Kato (Professor Emeritus of Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology), etc.