14 DAY TRIAL // Hours of never-before-seen, unaltered, unedited, and quite horrific footage of dolphin hunts in Taiji, Japan are now available online, and it's all because of a clash between a Newsweek magazine editor and “The Cove” director Louie Psihoyos.
On March 27, Newsweek magazine published a cover story on dolphin hunts in the town of Taiji in Japan. These slaughters have been making headlines for several years now, chiefly due to 2009 documentary film “The Cove,” which exposes the practice as being utterly barbaric.
Newsweek magazine is convinced that there are two sides to every story. Hence, its March 27 cover story does not focus on the horrific nature of dolphin slaughters in Taiji, Japan, but on how said documentary film turned the life of people living in this region around.
Long story short, villagers in Taiji claim that they have been harassed by the makers of “The Cove” and anti-hunt activists, and that hunting dolphins is a tradition in this part of the country that conservationists have no business interfering with, the Newsweek magazine story, signed by a Bill Powell, informs.
Besides, Bill Powell’s article makes a case of how, according to folks in Taiji, Japan, the water never turns red when marine mammals are being butchered. Therefore, the only explanation for this phenomenon in “The Cove” is that filmmakers resorted to special effects to make sure the footage made an impression.
“Mistrust of the filmmakers and anti-hunt activists is so intense that some villagers, who say the water never turns that red during the killing, believe the producers later added the lurid color with special effects,” the cover story by Bill Powell reads.
“The Cove” director Louie Psihoyos was quick to react to this cover story, and published a blogpost accusing Bill Powell of running a story without even bothering to check the facts. The filmmaker maintains that neither he nor his crew added any special effects to the documentary film.
What's more, Louie Psihoyos claims that he and the folks who worked with him on “The Cove” have actually kept some of the footage that they obtained while in Taiji, Japan from reaching the public eye, simply because they considered it to be too graphic.
To prove that the documentary film constitutes an accurate depiction of dolphin slaughters carried out on a yearly basis in said part of Japan, Louie Psihoyos posted hours of unedited footage on Vimeo. The videos, all of which include graphic images, show four different angles of the Taiji cove, and are sure to spark yet another media storm on hunts in Taiji, Japan.
A preview of this footage is available in the video below. Head over to Vimeo if you want to have a look at all of it, but be warned: the videos are not for those faint of heart.