RSSFilmmaker Martin Scorsese is planning to direct a movie on 17th-century persecution of Japanese Christians, based on Shushaku Endo´s famous novel “Chinmoku” (Silence) recent media reports say.
According to Japanese newspaper “Asahi Shimbun,” the award-winning American filmmaker, known for movies such as the controversial “Last Temptation of Christ,” plans to release his new film in 2010. Filming in New Zealand is scheduled to start this August, and it is not yet decided if the film will be distributed in Japan, says the Feb. 11 article.
Scorsese´s collaborator, Academy Award-winning art director Dante Ferretti, and producer E. Bennett, have already started research for the film, visiting the Nagasaki Museum of History and Culture, the London-based daily “Christian Today” reported.
The 1966 novel tells the story of a young Portuguese Jesuit priest in Nagasaki, and of the extreme persecution Christians faced at that time.
Japanese Church sources say up to 50,000 Japanese Catholics died in the persecution lasting almost 300 years. It peaked between 1603 and 1639, when most of the victims were killed, but continued until 1873, when Western nations pressured the Japanese government to recognize freedom of religion.
Jesuit Saint Francis Xavier brought Christianity to Japan in 1549. Feudal lords did not want foreign influences to undermine their power, and banned the religion and contacts with Westerners. Persecution followed.
Christians who were not killed for their faith practiced in secret, passing down the faith on their own through the centuries.
Last November, the Catholic Church beatified 188 Japanese martyrs, mostly laypeople ranging in age from 1 to 80.
Today, less than 1 percent of almost 130 million Japanese are Christians, of them 450,000 being Catholics.
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