STATEMENT

　　The protagonist of my film, Hatano Hideto, is the head of the Niigata Minamata disease patients’ support group in the town of Yasuda. He became involved with the Minamata disease patients’ movement in his 20s, was the driving force behind the documentary Living On the River Agano (directed by Sato Makoto, 1992), and has dedicated himself to running a one-person cultural movement called “Meido no miyage” (Promise of Heaven). Although more than three decades have passed since Living On the River Agano was released and its director is no longer alive, Hatano still screens the documentary every year on May 4, when he holds a memorial service called “On the Shores of Aga” to commemorate the victims of the disease and those who have worked to ease their plight over the years. I saw Living On the River Agano after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 and was inspired to attend the memorial service, which I did for the first time in 2013. I was fascinated by Hatano and started filming him. I soon developed an interest in the culture and traditions of the Agano River basin and how the story of the Niigata Minamata disease is being told today, and relocated to Niigata in 2022 to continue my filmmaking.
　　Many of the patients Hatano has supported were never officially certified as Minamata disease victims and were ostracized by their community. While sitting by the bedsides of unrecognized disease victims as they passed away, Hatano has kept searching for answers to the question of what entails true support—support that allows victims to feel happy that they lived, despite their affliction. For him, a relationship does not end when someone leaves this world. He does not see death as a final farewell.
　　“On the Shores of Aga,” the name of the memorial service, comes from the title of an eponymous collection of victim testimonies that Hatano collected and printed with a mimeograph soon after he learned of the Niigata Minamata disease. This phrase brings together the origins of the cultural movement with a practice of mourning that continues to this day, and I think it captures Hatano’s 50-year commitment to working in the community and supporting each patient as an individual. I also felt that it sounded like a promise to one day meet again, made by people gathered on the shores of the Agano River, so I borrowed it for the title of my work. Every spring, people from both this world and the next come together in Aga. I kept filming amid that lively atmosphere, which gave me hope that memories would be passed on to the next generation.