Hiroshi Sunairi | 2018 | Japan, USA | 76’ | EN subs

Iwao Hakamada, a former professional boxer, was sentenced to death in 1968 for mass murder and held on death row for 48 years, the longest stint in history. In 2014, he was granted an immediate release when the Shizuoka district court found that the evidence against him had been fabricated.  Mr. Hakamada now lives peacefully with his sister in Hamamatsu.

This documentary was filmed in 2015, one year after Mr. Hakamada’s discharge. In interviewing Mr. Hakamada, now 79 years old and still suffering from prison psychosis, this record attempts to capture the immeasurable solitude of nearly half a century. Walking alongside Hakamada through his labyrinth of delusions, amidst fading memories and the powerful will to victory, it glimpses into Hakamada’s complicated psychology, a web of opaque logic warped by his life’s predicament.

The ruling of Mr. Hakamada’s retrial by Shizuoka district court is expected on 26 September 2024. See the press coverage here.