THANK YOU POLAND!!

(above) The building housing the "Kinoteka" was home to the festival. As you can see, it's a monstrous throwback to the Stalin era and, like Stalin himself, is the subject of much controversy in Poland.



Just returned from an awesome film festival in Warsaw, Poland called the Planete Doc Review Festival. It is a big festival full of some fantastic films. The festival invited Patty and I to come so we did and we're so glad to have gone there. It was our first time in Poland, the land of so much interesting history and culture...and home to some incredible filmmakers. We were greeted with full houses at our screenings and excellent questions. The Polish people related to the story of the families and the issue of political kidnappings since their own history involves such things particularly under Communism. Many people believe that their own country has not dealt with the disappearance of many of its citizens for various reasons during the Communist era and during WWII. We were very touched and moved by people's sensitivity to this issue and many of them took the time to write messages to the families of the people abducted. We made a trip to the Auschwitz death camp as well and were immediately struck by thoughts of all the horrible, nasty things going on in authoritarian regimes right now that we are doing nothing about. A very moving experience that forced us to think about our role as human beings with a conscience. Of course, as filmmakers, it made us think again about future projects...
Thanks, Poland, for making our trip a memorable one and for looking after us with such kindness!

DIRECTORS MEET JAPAN'S FIRST LADY IN DC

Hi again...Mrs. Akie Abe, Japan's First Lady, met with us last week while she was in town with her husband, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during their first official visit to the United States. In a private meeting at the residence of the Japanese Ambassador to the US, Mrs. Abe told us how much she supported the film and the families in it. She has worked hard behind the scenes in an effort to raise awareness about the abductions of Japanese citizens by North Korea. Recently, she showed the film to the wives of several foreign ambassadors in Tokyo. She told us last week that they were very moved and they planned to go back to their husbands and tell them about the situation that Megumi's parents are in.