NHK World presents “Tokyo’s Homeless: In the Shadows of the Olympics” on Thursday, June 21, at 8 p.m. (doors open at 7:30 p.m.) at Echo Park Film Center, 1200 N. Alvarado St. in Los Angeles.
This free and family-friendly screening is co-presented by UCLA’s Urban Humanities Initiative.
The homeless in Japan are almost invisible. It’s not that homelessness doesn’t exist, but that they aren’t “in your face,” the way one would expect in other societies. The homeless are also dwindling in number, as they age along with the general population and are accepted by social welfare programs. For various reasons, some fall through the ‟safety net.”
With the advent of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, these urban poor are under pressure to disappear. What does the future hold for them?
The director is Michael Goldberg, a Canadian cameraman and documentary director who has lived in Japan for 35 years. He has filmed extensively in the areas affected by the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters. The themes of his personal work relate to bridging differences — between men and women, the old and young, nature and modernization, Japan and the West.
Also screening is “Vanishing Community,” a reflection on the spatial dimensions of homelessness, revealing tensions between notions of homeless space, public space, and the city as they play out in Tokyo as preparations for the 2020 Olympics begin. This film was created by Nerve Macaspac as part of UCLA’s Urban Humanities Initiative.
For more information, call (213) 484-8846 or email info@echoparkfilmcenter.org.