Threats keep dolphin protest out of Japan village

TOKYO The star of “The Cove,” an Oscar winning documentary about a Japanese dolphin hunt, is back in Japan to protest the slaughter but had to cancel his trip to the village at the center of the controversy because of threats from an ultranationalist group.Instead, Ric O’Barry, the former dolphin-trainer for the 1960s “Flipper” TV show, is playing host to a reception Wednesday for some 100 animal-lovers at a Tokyo hotel.On Thursday, he will take a petition signed by 1.7 million people from 155 nations demanding the end of the dolphin hunt to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, escorted by police security.

The 70-year-old had initially planned to take the petition to the Japanese Fisheries Ministry. That was also canceled on advice from Japanese police.”I wish all these people could be in Taiji,” the small coastal village highlighted in the documentary, O’Barry told The Associated Press. “It was too dangerous. The big losers are the people of Taiji.”Taiji, which has a population of 3,500 people, defends the dolphin-killing as tradition and a livelihood. In the past, some of the captured dolphins have been sold to aquariums. Others are eaten as meat.

“The Cove,” which won this year’s Academy Award for best documentary, depicts a handful of fishermen from Taiji who herd a flock of dolphins into a cove and stab them to death, turning the waters red with blood.The Taiji dolphin hunt begins every year on Sept. 1, and a fishing group has confirmed that the hunt is on this year, although boats returned empty Wednesday.O’Barry and other conservationists have made trips before to the village around the beginning of the hunt to express their opposition to what they say is a cruel slaying of animals that are as intelligent as human beings.

His trip last year – covered by the AP – is being shown on the “Animal Planet” TV series in the U.S. starting this month. There are no plans to show the series in Japan.The message of “The Cove” has drawn support from nature-lovers around the world, including celebrities such as Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox and Robin Williams.

The Japanese government allows a hunt of about 20,000 dolphins a year, and it argues that killing them – and also whales – is no different from raising cows or pigs for slaughter.But conservationists disagree. Groups such as the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd have dogged the Japanese whale hunt – which the government allows for academic research but from which the meat is also sold – chasing whaling vessels in an effort to impede their operations.

O’Barry had initially planned outdoor rock-festival-like festivities in Taiji this year, bringing along movie stars who support him. But he can barely step out of his hotel room because of the threats, he said.”The Cove” opened in some Japanese theaters in June. Earlier, some screenings were canceled after getting a flood of angry phone calls and threats by far-right nationalists, who oppose the film as a denigration of Japanese culture.

Protesters have shown up at the distributor’s office in downtown Tokyo, shouting slogans. But many Japanese have never eaten dolphin or whale meat, and are horrified by the butchering of dolphins in “The Cove.””The documentary was shocking for Japanese,” said Akihiro Orihara, 40, who runs vegetarian restaurants in Tokyo and attended O’Barry’s reception. “We need information to be able to make our decision.”O’Barry said he has not given up and plans to be back every year.”Cruelty shouldn’t be the tradition or culture of any nation,” he said. (AP)

Academy Awards night is one of the most glamorous of the year

Academy Awards night is one of the most glamorous of the year, but the ceremony does far more than offer up red carpet glitz and golden statuettes.Those three-plus hours of television also fund a year’s worth of philanthropic endeavors for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

With the license fee somewhere north of $65 million that ABC pays for the rights to air the Oscars, the academy funds an entire year’s worth of projects that fulfill the organization’s original mission: to promote the art and science of filmmaking.

“The awards are one night; the place goes on for 364 more days,” says academy President Tom Sherak, pointing out that the nonprofit organization doesn’t fund-raise throughout the year. “That award night pays for the entire organization.”

A year’s worth of concerns for the group include preserving film history, screening films for the public, developing young talent and keeping up with the technologies of the future.

Sherak, whose four-year term started just last year, says that among his chief concerns for the industry are film preservation and the changeover to digital cinema. The organization, he points out, recently funded a study on digital storage that looks at the compatibility and reliability of the technology in terms of what issues might arise down the road.

“Decisions we make today are going to be the ones that are going to last for decades,” he says.While many eyes are on the future of the business, safeguarding the past is of equal importance. In addition to retaining prints of nearly every best picture Oscar winner since the ceremony started in 1929, the academy has literally millions of film-related items dating to the industry’s inception.

“The academy has 10 million photographs, 100 million press-clip files, 80,000 screenplays, 34,000 movie posters — stuff that never should be allowed to die,” Sherak says.

Stuff that should, in fact, probably be in a museum. Although in 2007 the organization consulted an architect and drew up plans for an 8-acre campus adjacent to the existing Pickford Center in Hollywood, the Museum of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been put on indefinite hold, until the needed construction funds can be raised.

“You can’t have a future without a past or a present. You can’t forget the people that have come before you,” Sherak says. “The board believes that the history of our business is something that will interest people. We are going to build a museum, [but] right now it’s on hold.”In the meantime, the academy has plenty of philanthropic programs to keep its members busy, the most prestigious of which is the Don and Gee Nicholls Fellowships in Screenwriting. Offered to screenwriters who have earned less than $5,000 writing for film or TV, the Nicholls Fellowship gives $30,000 to five writers a year and counts Allison Anders (“Mi vida loca”)and “Erin Brockovich” screenwriter Susannah Grant among its previous recipients.

“I’ve been on the board for six years now, and I went to my first Nicholls award winners dinner this year. I listened to the stories about the adversities they went through and their passion for writing, and I realized just how much we do as an organization,” Sherak says.

The academy reaches out to the community at large as well, offering retrospectives, lectures and exhibitions to film enthusiasts (usually free or for a nominal fee).

For instance, the group premiered a restored print of “Citizen Kane” as part of a sold-out tribute to visual-effects pioneer Linwood Dunn. And with an eye toward the academy’s decision to have 10 best picture nominees this year, the Grand Lobby Gallery at academy headquarters is exhibiting posters from an eclectic mix of best picture nominees from 1936 through ’43, when the number of nominees was anywhere from three to 12.

Other public services include providing grants to film festivals and colleges, creating film-related internships for college students — such as this year’s position at Pixar Animation Studios — and reaching out to high schoolers to create a broader media literacy.

During past president Sid Ganis’ term, the outreach went worldwide, including sending members of different branches to learn about such far-flung film industries as those in Iran and Vietnam and inviting foreign filmmakers to the U.S. The Iranian exchange culminated in a five-night screening and discussion series.

“They’re not political, we’re not political, so it makes it really comfortable to express ideas about the movie business,” Sherak says. “It makes us whole; it makes us who we want to be.”