Otaiya: Japan's Hidden Christians

Purchase: http://der.org/films/otaiya.html In the sixteenth century Portuguese Catholic missionaries introduced Christianity to Japan, only to find the flourishing religion banned by 1614 by the Tokugawa government. About 150,000 believers, known as the "Hidden Christians", went underground. Through the occasion of this ceremony, the film tells the story of Japan's Hidden Christians. Made with the cooperation of contemporary Hidden Christians on the remote island of Narushima, the film features the only two remaining priests in the Goto Islands. The ceremonial and religious lives of these two men stand in stark contrast to the materialism of the younger generation.