'Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story' to Premiere at Slamdance Film Festival

By Audrey Barrick, Christian Post Reporter Tuesday, December 27, 2005

The 12th Annual Slamdance Film Festival next month will be featuring a documentary film accounting what one newspaper in 2002 had described as one of the most bizarre crimes ever committed by a state.

"Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story" will make its premiere showing in a shocking and still mysterious account of the disappearance of a young Japanese schoolgirl and the crime of the North Korean regime.

In 1977, 13-year-old Megumi Yokota vanished while returning home from badminton practice after school. Her untraceable disappearance left her parents in grief as decades passed without a clue of her whereabouts or of the incident itself.

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It was later found the Megumi was one of 12 Japanese citizens who were abducted by North Korean spies.

Reports of sightings of Megumi began to surface sixteen years later, revealing that she had been seen in Pyongyang. A North Korean defector claimed that Megumi was living at a training institute for intelligence agents in North Korea along with other abducted Japanese to teach their spies the Japanese language and culture.

North Korea had denied the claims. More defector accounts, however, attesting to Megumi's abduction exploded in the media worldwide. Reports revealed that Megumi was carried off on a spy boat and arrived in Pyongyang covered in blood as she had tried to scratch at the hull.

In September 2002, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, to whom he acknowledged and apologized for the kidnapping of the Japanese citizens. Kim claimed they were captured to serve as language instructors for North Korean agents.

Of the 12, eight had died including Megumi. There is still suspicion over the high number of deaths. Megumi's parents were told that she had married a North Korean and had a daughter.

During the seemingly endless years that Megumi's parents had endured without knowing what had happened to their daughter, Mrs. Yokota had turned to Christ in her grief for solace through Megumi's Christian friend and with the guidance of a missionary.

She gave a testimony at a meeting in Tokyo, after learning of her death, where her plead for justice and message of hope was disseminated to nearly every broadcast network.

"Abduction" is one of 80 films that will be shown at the Slamdance Film Festival. It was selected among 500 submissions as one of nine documentary films to be showcased.

"Our film is not a political or investigative work," said the Chris Sheridan and Patty Kim, co-directors of the film. "It is a powerful, moving testimony to a parents' love for their child and what that love looks like when it is put to the test. More importantly, it is a story about the strength of family."

Coinciding with the Sundance Film Festival, Slamdance is scheduled for Jan. 22, 2006 in Park City, Utah, where 20 competition feature films, six special screenings and 57 short films in competition from around the world will be shown.