Ayukawa: The Weight of a Life

Directed by Tu Neill

At once tranquil and bracing, Tu Neill and Jim Speers’ film is a portrait of a seaside town and its vanishing way of life. Though it is now slowly emptying, Ayukawa was once a thriving coastal community, its success based on a practice rooted in tradition, custom, and ceremony: whaling. Through the voices of local elders, the film conveys how that form of hunting developed into the lifeblood of the town before cultural changes, international condemnation, and strict regulation brought it to the brink of non-existence.