This one-day event will bring together images and sounds of the Sanrizuka struggle, focusing on films and documents produced on different aspects of the movement. The presentations will centre on a selection of film rushes filmed by Ogawa Productions between 1968 and 1977, showing many aspects of the Sanrizuka struggle, village life and the filmmaking practice of the collective. The screenings will also include films such as the experimental animation The Extinction of Landscape by Aihara Nobuhiro (1971), a recording of the Nihon Gen’yasai solidarity concert held in Sanrizuka for three days and nights in 1971, organised by the Youth Action Brigade of the Sanrizuka Shibayama United Airport Opposition Alliance, and a set of slides produced in 1978.
The presentation will concentrate on the extensive archive of photographs and film rushes produced by Ogawa Productions, with a selection of footage focusing on the conflict and resistance of local communities from 1968 to 1977. The event will also look at the current situation in Sanrizuka and discuss the Heta Project, which involves the construction of a third runway at Narita Airport and the flooding of the remains of the ancient village of Heta. Researchers Yoichi Aikawa and Ricardo Matos Cabo will host the event and discuss the history and potential of these images of struggle.
This event is included in the Rich Mix Venue Pass. Pass holders can book a free ticket to this event and all other screenings and events taking place at Rich Mix as part of the festival. More information on the pass can be found here.
Image © Courtesy of Narita Airport and the Community Historical Museum
Programme details:
Nihon Gen’yasai – Sanrizuka
Aoike Kenji | 1971 | Japan | 24’ | Digital | Sound
The Sanrizuka Gen’yasai, held over three intense days in August 1971, was a radical music festival organized by the Youth Action Committee of the anti-airport movement. Set against the backdrop of forced land expropriations, the event featured performances by groups like Zunou Keisatsu (Bullet Brain), bringing revolutionary politics onto the stage. The festival was documented by students involved in independent screening activities, who took part as filmmakers and comrades, seeing the act of recording as political engagement. The atmosphere was chaotic, defiant, and electric – from confrontations with right-wing agitators to the provocative appearance of Zero Dimension, who reunited for what they called an ultimate ritual of respect for Sanrizuka. The local Women’s Action Committee, made up of farmers at the centre of the anti-airport struggle, led a bon odori – a traditional folk dance – on stage, undeterred by jeers. The film that emerged from this event remains a powerful document of how youth culture, radical music, and grassroots political struggle converged in Sanrizuka.
The Extinction of Landscape
Aihara Nobuhiro | 1971 | Japan | 15’ | Digital | Silent
This animated documentary is derived from footage shot at the site of the Sanrizuka struggle opposing the construction of Narita Airport. In addition to scenes evidently shot before and after the Nihon Gen’yasai Festival in Sanrizuka, it features time-lapse sequences showing abandoned houses and construction equipment levelling requisitioned land. “The footage was filmed in Narita. Because this land had been seized, I became conscious of the intensity of my own inner landscape. My time-lapse filming of the landscape was intended for use in an animation-as-documentary.” (Zakku baran No. 6, Nobuhiro Aihara’s World of Independent Animation, Tokyo Zōkei University Animation Studies Group, 1979)
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Sanrizuka – The Farmers’ Struggle for Life
Colour slide set, 30′, produced by PARC
The afternoon will begin with the projection of a 1978 slide set accompanied by cassette tape, produced in English by the Pacific-Asia Resource Center (PARC). Featuring photographs by Fukushima Kukijirō and others, alongside illustrations by Ishige Hiromichi, the work introduces the Sanrizuka struggle to an international audience. Founded in 1973, PARC is a non-profit organization dedicated to global social and economic justice. It has long supported grassroots movements in Japan while building solidarity with struggles across the Asia-Pacific region. PARC originally emerged as the publisher of AMPO, an English-language journal named after the Japanese abbreviation for the US-Japan Security Treaty.
The original promotional text described the contents as follows:
“The new Narita International Airport has been constructed to serve as the main gateway to Japan, a country that has now become one of the most industrialised in the world. To the farmers who live in the surrounding area (known as Sanrizuka), the airport has meant the complete destruction of their land and their right to a livelihood. This slide-tape documentary speaks of the 13-year struggle of farmers opposing the airport, alongside the undaunted support of Japanese people who stand with them—a struggle which still continues today, aiming to close the airport. It is also an appeal for solidarity with other Asian communities facing the destruction of agriculture and fishing as a result of neo-colonial industrialization.”
Sanrizuka in Action: Rushes and materials from the archive of Ogawa Productions
Presentation by Ricardo Matos Cabo with Aikawa Yoichi
This presentation will feature a selection of rushes and photographs from the extensive body of documentation left by Ogawa Productions during the many years they lived and filmed in the village of Heta, at the heart of the Sanrizuka struggle. Shot over nearly a decade, the collective amassed hundreds of hours of material, some of which was edited into their monumental series of seven films on Sanrizuka. The full body of footage offers a unique and expansive record of the struggle, capturing its many facets and episodes, as well as providing rare insight into Ogawa Pro’s collaborative working methods and filmmaking process.
More than 200 cans of 16mm film, hours of sound tapes, still photography, and other non-film materials are preserved and digitized at the Narita Airport and Community Historical Museum (成田空港 空と大地の歴史館), where they have been carefully organized for over 25 years. This archive, which also includes material preserved thanks to the efforts of former Ogawa Pro member and filmmaker Fukuda Katsuhiko, offers an extraordinary window into one of Japan’s most significant land struggles.
Aikawa Yoichi, a researcher who has been deeply involved for many years in the work of preserving, studying, and making accessible the Ogawa archive, will offer an insight into the collection. The presentation will showcase only a small part of this vast material, offering a glimpse into the richness and depth of this important historical and cinematic archive.
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Preserving Heta Project
The day will close with a presentation of short films created during a recent workshop organized by Aikawa Yoichi to document the historical landscape of the former Heta Village. Once a traditional rural settlement, the village was relocated due to the expansion of Narita Airport. While no residents remain, parts of the landscape depicted in Ogawa Productions’ Heta buraku still exist. A group of participants gathered to film this scenery, which is expected to disappear entirely with the next phase of airport construction, preserving an image for the future.