Zakka Films

三上智恵

Journalist and filmmaker. Mikami joined  Mainichi Broadcasting System as an announcer in 1987. In 1995 she moved to Okinawa for the launch of  Ryukyu Asahi Broadcasting Corp. While working as  main  anchor for the local news program Station Q, she produced many documentary programs about Okinawan culture, nature, and society including Sitting by the Sea: The 600-Day Battle of Henoko and To Die a Hero or To Die a Dog? In 2010 she received the Women in Broadcasting Award from the society of Japanese Women in Radio and Television. The television version of  The Targeted Village won many prizes including the Grand Prize at the ZA-Koenji Documentary Film Festival. The theatrical version (2013) was chosen by Kinema Junpo as Best Cultural Film of the year, and at Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival 2013 it won the Directors Guild of Japan Award and Citizen’s Prize. She currently works freelance as a journalist and filmmaker, and teaches  Okinawan folklore at Okinawa International University.

Total running time: Approx. 114 min. / color

Total running time: Approx. . / color

Total running time: Approx. 130 minutes. / color

A hundred thousand non-combatants—one in four Okinawans—died in the brutal Battle of Okinawa at the end of World War II. Postwar, the U.S. military forcibly constructed military bases throughout Okinawa. Even today, 43 years since Okinawa’s reversion to Japan and 70 years since the war, 74% of all U.S. military facilities in Japan are crowded onto the Okinawan islands.