In collaboration with the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, MediaStorm created a documentary based on Shiho Fukada’s portrait series, Japan’s Disposable Workers. In three sections the film explores the labor issues affecting Japan, and in so doing, illustrates the larger global labor crisis:

Overworked to Suicide
After the recession of the 1990s, Japan’s white collar salarymen increasingly must work arduous hours for fear of losing their jobs. Working essentially two shifts a day for weeks at a time leads frequently to feelings of depression, something that is still stigmatized in Japan.

Net Cafe Refugees
Internet cafes have existed in Japan for over a decade, but in the mid 2000s, customers began using these spaces as living quarters. Internet cafe refugees are mostly temporary employees, their salary too low to rent their own apartments.

Dumping Ground
Kamagasaki, Osaka, Japan used to be a thriving day laborer’s town. Today, it is home to approximately 25,000 unemployed and elderly men, many of whom are also homeless.

The films will screen in Washington, DC on Friday, September 20th, 2013 and Tuesday, September 24th at the Pulitzer Center Film Festival – a week-long celebration of reporting from around the world. The full-length feature will premiere on MediaStorm this fall.