Within the 2016 Houston Turkish Film Festival, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is presenting a very unique docu-drama that is known to the Japanese community as KAINAN 1890 (known as Ertuğrul 1890 in Turkish and 125 Years Memory in English).
This moving and dramatic historical epic is based on two occasions of humanitarian cooperation between Japanese and Turkish people that happened a century apart.
In 1890 the Ottoman frigate Ertuğrul, on its way home after paying a courtesy visit to the emperor of Japan, was driven aground in a typhoon and wrecked in the Pacific Ocean. Hearing the alarm bell that warned of a vessel in distress, local villagers provided assistance, saving 69 from a crew of 600.
The film flashes forward to 1985, during the Iran–Iraq War, when the evacuation of Japanese citizens in Tehran was aided by officials at the Turkish Embassy who arranged for a safe departure during the dangerous bombing raids.
These two humanitarian initiatives have indelibly linked Turkey and Japan.
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KAINAN 1890 | Erugrul 1890 | 125 Years Memory
2015; Mitsutoshi Tanaka
2 hrs 2 mins
in Japanese and Turkish with English subtitles, Turkey/Japan
Color
Website
To learn more about the film, click here.