Provocative filmmaker Fumiki Watanabe arrested for illegal postering in Tokyo

by Chris MaGee

Fumiki Watanabe may not be a name that many of you are familiar with, and to be totally honest neither am I, but the controversial director of such films as 1992's "Zazambo", that investigates a supposed suicide of a young man held in police custody despite his claims of innocence, has run afoul of the law himself. According to Variety Asia Online the 47-year-old filmmaker was arrested for illegally postering in the Koto Ward of Tokyo (photo above), as well as resisting arrest after Watanabe and a female assistant tried to flee police in their car. The two were advertising for a screening of Watanabe's latest film "Tenno densetsu (The Imperial Tradition)", a work that is a critique of Emperor Akihito and that maintains that he is not the son of his predecessor, The Emperor Showa (Hirohito).

Watanbe has made it a practice of illegal postering to promote his films in the past. Previous posters for his films have featured provocative headlines such as "Everyone, pass out!" and "Puke bags available," and he normally acts as projectionist at his film's screenings. He was the subject of a 2007 documentary by Kenji Murakami titled "Interview with Fumiki Watanabe, The Great Filmmaker" in which he professed a desire to be a "terrorist". Despite this outlaw stance Watanabe's film "Shimaguni konjo (Homemade Movie)" was screened in Cannes in 1990 and was honoured with the New Director's Award by the Director's Guild of Japan that same year.

This is the second run in with the law this year. On May 14th Watanabe was arrested for non-payment of a hotel bill in Matsushima Azuma City in Miyagi Ptrefecture. Interestingly enough at the time of this second arrest police reported Watanabe as having no fixed address.