Films

• Japan/2010/105min.
• Director: Aya Hanabusa

Aptly named to mean “the island of celebration” in Japanese, Iwai-shima is a beautiful small island in the Seto Inland Sea with the population of only 500. In 1982, a corporate plan to build a nuclear power plant near the island surfaced, and the long fight of the islanders began. Falling in love with the island and its people on her first visit, director Aya Hanabusa kept going back there with camera operator Chitsuna Okubo to shoot “Holy Island,” which is not a finger-pointing social documentary one might expect, but a true celebration of the beautiful life there is.