Megumi (2008)

In 1977, the 13-year-old Megumi Yokota leaves her school in Niigata, a coastal city in Japan, never to come home. Megumi is abducted by North Korean secret agents but her parents will know that only two decades later. They believe she is still alive and the film maker has started to believe it too. She resorts to every documentary and feature technique to make that credible. MEGUMI is a unique and unusual film, several genres are mixed together. In the first place documentary with fiction, but this isn't an ordinary docudrama either. The documentary parts comprise fictional elements and the fictional parts remain close to reality. The film tells the story of the dramatic disappearance of the Japanese schoolgirl Megumi Yokota on 15 November 1977. In the form of the actress Janica Draisma, the film maker visits the coastal town of Niigata from whence Megumi disappeared. Thirty years later, the family and the acquaintances of the girl are still stunned. They are still incredulous. Still filled with a sorrow they can't come to terms with. In the meantime it has become apparent that Megumi was kidnapped to North Korea to teach North Korean trainee spies to speak fluent Japanese. The parents of Megumi are convinced that their daughter is still alive, even though North Korea alleges that she has committed suicide. The film maker wanted to tell a poetic and emotional story. For that she used elements of the feature film in order to make the loss and hope visible. She was not primarily interested in the political side of the story. She was impressed by the hope and power of the parents and with them she came to believe that Megumi is still alive.