NHK, Japan’s public broadcasting company founded in 1926, highlights for MIPCOM its brand-new line up with three powerful documentaries including Heirs of the Red Gene: A Century of Chinese Communist Rule and REGENERATION: From Bullets to Brotherhood and Fukushima Monologue.
Yukari Harada, Senior Producer, Global Content Development Division, Programming Department of NHK, commented: ‘Factual programming has long been one of the main pillars of our company. Coronavirus pandemic has not stopped us to keep producing new powerful as the titles we are brining to MIPCOM this year’.
Heirs of the Red Gene: A Century of Chinese Communist Ruleset when the Communist Party of China marked its centenary, it had begun a program of ideological education aimed at preserving the “Red Gene”. As China’s economic growth slows down, the government under the Xi Jinping leadership is pushing a back-to-basics ethos that promotes devotion to the Communist Party.
REGENERATION: From Bullets to Brotherhood, the production is set in Cape Town, where is caught in the grip of endless turf wars between dozens of gangs. The police and government have been unable to break the cycle of murder, robbery, gun-running, and drug trafficking. One man making a difference is Andie Steele-Smith, a businessman and pastor who braves the dangers of the slums on a mission to rehabilitate the young men of the gangs. In this documentary, Steele-Smith gives a self-filmed, first-person account of the world of the gangs and his efforts to bring regeneration.
Fukushima Monologue, finalist of “Our Human Planet – Long Form “category at 2021 Jackson Wild Media Awards, it’s a documentary set on March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, everyone within a 20km area was ordered to evacuate. Matsumura Naoto alone stayed put. For 10 years, he has taken care of animals abandoned by those who left. Only a few people have since returned, but reconstruction is in full swing. In Fukushima Monologue, audience can hear his story and give a chance to reflect on resilience and on what is truly important.
