Okinawa leaders’ struggles against U.S. bases shown in new film
By KAZUYUKI ITO/ Staff Writer
April 11, 2025
“Tida no Unmei” (Provided by the production committee of “Tida no Unmei”)
A new documentary film that depicts the long campaigns waged by two Okinawa governors against the concentration of U.S. military bases in the prefecture will be released on April 19 nationwide.
The film, titled “Tida no Unmei” (Fate of the Sun), features former Okinawa Governor Masahide Ota, who served from 1990 to 1998, and Takeshi Onaga, who served as governor from 2014 to 2018.
The documentary depicts how the two governors championed the rights of Okinawa residents against the central government.
Tadahiko Sako, an employee of Tokyo Broadcasting System Television Inc. and a film director, directed the documentary.
“I want people to think about how Japanese society should be through these two men who confronted the Japanese government,” Sako said.
Ota was governor when the Japanese and U.S. governments agreed to return U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan to Japan, following the 1995 sexual assault of a local elementary schoolgirl by three U.S. service members.
Ota survived the bloody Battle of Okinawa near the end of World War II as a student corpsman.
Even after the war, he objected to the central government’s policy of allowing the heavy concentration of U.S. bases in Okinawa. When relocating the operations of the Futenma base to Henoko in Nago, within the prefecture, was decided, Ota vigorously opposed the plan and fought against the government.
Onaga served as secretary-general of the Okinawa prefectural chapter of the Liberal Democratic Party and had sometimes opposed Ota.
However, after the Democratic Party of Japan came to power, Onaga openly stated his opposition to the base relocation plan to Henoko and became the central pillar of a political force called All Okinawa.
After Onaga was first elected as governor in 2014, he opposed the central government by withdrawing the landfill approval given by the previous governor, Hirokazu Nakaima.
“Tida no Unmei” is 129 minutes long. It depicts the struggles and agonies of the two governors based on interview footage from that time and the accounts of their close aides.
The film was released in Okinawa Prefecture on March 22, ahead of the nationwide premiere.
The nationwide release will begin on April 19 at Eurospace movie theater in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, before being shown in theaters in Osaka, Fukuoka, Aichi and other prefectures.
This film is director Sako’s fourth following the release of his first film in 2017.
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