6 h 10 min, 3 nov 2021 ans - MINAMATA W. Eugene Smith Memorial Grant winner Jane Evelyn Atwood opposes MGM’s Minamata censorship

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W. Eugene Smith Memorial Grant winner Jane Evelyn Atwood opposes MGM’s Minamata censorship

by Richard Phillips

The statement published below is from internationally acclaimed photographer Jane Evelyn Atwood, the first winner of the prestigious W. Eugene Smith Memorial Grant, when it was established in 1980. It is the fifth article in a series about Minamata, the new movie by Andrew Levitas and starring Johnny Depp, in addition to our original review.

Minamata focuses on the industrial poisoning of Japanese fishing communities in Minamata by the Chisso Corporation and the courageous efforts by acclaimed photo-essayist Eugene Smith (Depp) and his wife Aileen Mioko Smith to expose this crime before a global audience during the early 1970s.

The WSWS reviewed the movie in late July and followed this with a series of interviews. The first of these conversations was with photographer Stephen Dupont, a winner of the W. Eugene Smith Grant for Humanistic Photography in 2007; the second with acclaimed Australian documentary photographer Jack Picone; and the third with Kevin Eugene Smith, a lawyer, former television producer and journalist, and the manager of the photographic estate of his father, Eugene Smith. The fourth article featured comments from photographers David Dare Parker and John Hulme.

While Minamata has been released in many countries around the world, MGM, which purchased the rights to distribute the film in North America, has not screened it in the US. The company, which is being taken over by Amazon, has refused to give any indication when it will be released.

In July, director Levitas issued an open letter revealing that he had been told by MGM’s acquisitions head Sam Wollman that the company was “burying” Minamata over concerns that “the personal issues of Johnny Depp,” could reflect negatively on MGM. The company’s arrogant and censorious actions constitute an outrageous attack on all those involved in the film’s production, including Aileen Mioko Smith, who was co-author of the book on which it was based, as well as the victims and families of those poisoned by Chisso.

Jane Evelyn Atwood was born in New York and has been living in France since 1971. Regarded as one of the world’s leading documentary photographers, she is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards. This includes a World Press Foundation Prize, the Grand Prix Paris Match du Photojournalisme, a Grand Prix du Portfolio de la Société Civile des Auteurs Multimédia, as well as a Grand Prix Photo Albert Kahn and a Lucie Award for Documentary Photography, to name just a few.

During her 45-year career she has published 12 books of her work, her photographs have appeared in the world’s leading newspapers and magazines, and she has exhibited worldwide in solo and group exhibitions. Atwood’s approach is deeply immersive, spending years on individual projects; her work is intense, empathetic and animated by a determination to expose social oppression and injustice.

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