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“I didn’t want to make an obscure, small art film that people didn’t see,” says Andrew Levitas. “This specific story was made so people could see it.”
The renowned sculptor and photographer – and husband of celebrated classical singer Katherine Jenkins – is talking about his new film,
Minamata. A powerful and poignant history lesson, it tells the story of the mercury poisoning of Minamata residents in Japan via a chemical factory owned by the Chisso Corporation.
Levitas captures this shocking story through the lens of
Life magazine photographer W Eugene Smith (played by Johnny Depp), but also Aileen Mioko Smith, the Japanese translator who, in 1971, encouraged him to document the scandal (and later became his wife).