The Oppressed Students

Directed by Shinsuke Ogawa

A galvanising documentary about the organised resistance of a group of students barricaded at the Takasaki City University of Economics. The university student struggles at the end of the 1960s in Japan were the culmination of over a decade of protests, social dissent and political unrest. All this gave energy to the student movement, which displayed original and sustained forms of organisation and resistance against the government and which would spread to universities all over the country. Together with the filmmakers of the recently formed collective Jieiso, Ogawa Shinsuke joined a group of students barricading themselves inside the Takasaki City University of Economics. Shot over the course of a year, this film documents the nature of the political discussion and organisation as well as the fierce debates going on among the students and their violent struggles with the authorities. Credit: ICA London