Tale of a bucher shop

March 2012, the abattoir that handed down for generations ended 102
years of business. After the last slaughter, Kitade Butcher Shop starts new daily life.
Human being stay alive by eating other's life. The film records the family who has been faceing the essence of 'life'.
At the moment the cattle is knocked the glabella by the hammer,it goes down to its knees. Then the family opens it by skilled hands. The body temperatures of the human and the cattle are mixed, and the abattoir comes to be filled with energy.

<Synopsis>
At kaizuka City in Osaka, there is a family butcher shop where the meat is sold directly by the producer. They carry out from fatting up and slaughter cattle to sell the meat. At the shop, the seventh-generation eldest sonslices a hunk of meat carefully. His wife takes order and has chitchat with customers.

At garage, the second son works hard to make Japanese drum.Meanwhile, the eldest daughter is busy preparing lunch. Their father who faced the absurd discrimination because of his work as a butcher that is typical job of Buraku people is always in their heart.  While taking over the butcher shop from their father, the brothers devote themselves to Buraku liberation to eliminate discrimination that their father's generation has been faced.

By calling for society, they themselves have also gradually changed. They have been awoken that the liberation is to discipline them and change their own way of lives.



<Director Statement>
It all started when I saw one monochrome picture. A man is stripping the skin of a cow from the hanged huge carcass by knife. The picture has an overwhelming presence, producing tension and energy. It was ever so beautiful. I was surprised to find myself thinking the scene of slaughter beautiful.
Four years later, I luckily met a family who runs a butcher shop in Osaka. They have been engaging in the butchery business as their breadand-butter job from father to son. However, a slaughterhouse in their village was closed, and they had to end their business. Facing the cattle nearly ten times heavier than human, and taking their lives in their hands is truly life-risking operation. But such scenes have been blotted out from public eyes. I began to sincerely respect their work. Since ancient times, slaughtering has been despised as the work of the buraku people, and has been a taboo. It seldom appears in the media. The family I met were very bright, calm, and loving. It seems to be the proof that they have been struggling to be themselves by fighting against severe discrimination.
The film portrays the family who loves their family and works hard, rather than considering them and their work as special. I yearn for providing a point of view to eliminate deep-seated discrimination, by showing the way of life of the buraku people as those no different from others.

<Director>
Director: HANABUSA Aya
Born in Tokyo in 1974 and graduated from Jiyugakuen University in 1994, she joined POLE POLE TIMES in 2001, engaging in production, distribution, and advertisement of a film "Alexei and the Spring." After working as a producer of a film, "Namii to Utaeba (Singing with Nami)" in 2006, she became a freelancer. In 2010, her first film "Houri no shima (Holy Island)" was released. It describes the people in Iwaishima, Yamaguchi who have been resisting the construction project of Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Station for 30 years. The perspective of the film has drawn the sympathy of many, and the screening has been held all over Japan. It was awarded The SiciliAmbiente Documentary Film Festival for documentary in 2012.

<Contacts>
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