Plan to screen film on dolphin kill sparks row

Dolphin hunters outraged at the decision to show the award-winning documentary The Cove at the Tokyo International Film Festival are reportedly bombarding organisers and the cinema where it is to be shown with phone calls and protest letters.

The controversial film - which documents the annual slaughter of dolphins in Taiji, southern Japan - was only added to the list of 270 festival films at the last minute, under international pressure to live up to its environment-friendly credentials. The festival opened on Saturday.

The Cove has won awards at 14 movie festivals around the world, including at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and follows the efforts of former dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry to halt the annual catch.

The film, which will be shown at the Toho Cinema in the Roppongi Hills complex tomorrow, has not previously been shown in Japan, and there are concerns over a confrontation between dolphin hunters and environmentalists.

People close to the festival have told the British firm promoting the documentary that Taiji fishermen and their supporters have been making phone calls to the film festival committee every 30 minutes to demand that the movie be withdrawn.

'They have been very aggressive and persistent,' Sasha Gibson of Freud Communications was told. 'They may try to block entrance to the movie.'

O'Barry told her that the dolphin hunters and the local Taiji government were also trying to block The Cove from being shown.