HAIKU ON A PLUM TREE
Italy/Japan, 2016 - 73’
Director: Mujah Maraini Melehi / Screenplay: Mujah Maraini Melehi, Deborah De Furia / Producer: Maurizio Antonini, Deborah De Furia / Cast: Raiju Kamata, Motonari Okura, Yasunari Okura, Akira Sakata / Photography: Maura Morales Bergmann / Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto / Editing: Letizia Caudullo / Distributor: Mescalito
Tokyo 1943: Italian anthropologist Fosco Maraini and painter Topazia Alliata refused to sign allegiance to Mussolini's government. They were sent to a prison camp in Nagoya with their three daughters, Dacia, Yuki and Toni. Today: Toni's daughter Mujah explores her family's experience and legacy by bringing their memories to life as she makes her own journey to Japan.
Mujah Maraini Melehi: On the 9 September 1943, the day after the armistice proclaimed by Badoglio, the Maraini family was arrested near Kyoto. The Anglo-Florentine ethnologist Fosco Maraini and the painter Topazia Alliata of Villafranca refused to declare loyalty to Mussolini and signed the adhesion to the Republic of Salò, and for this they were imprisoned with the three little daughters at the concentration camp of Tempaku in Nagoya.
A dramatic family saga, the director Mujah Maraini-Melehi decided to tell in the documentary Haiku on a plum tree. In the footsteps of memory, Mujah and co-screenwriter Deborah Beldford De Furia embarked on a trip to Japan to retrace the family experience and make it universal. To not forget.
