Our Story

On March 20, 1995, Atsushi Sakahara became a victim of the Tokyo Sarin Gas attack, the largest act of domestic terrorism in Japan. The group behind the attack was doomsday cult Aum. In 2013, Atsushi began preparing for the documentary and contacted the current cult leader Araki to speak with him. The two are around the same age, from the same prefecture, and went to the same university. How did their roads diverge so drastically?

The journey to finish the film and bring it to an audience has been a long one, arriving now at the 25th anniversary of the attack It seems like surviving terrorism is no match for the murky waters of trying to get an independent doc distributed.

While the documentary focuses on Atsushi’s conversation and travels with currently cult leader Araki, here we’re going to take a deeper dive into all the surrounding research and information we’ve had to leave out. In the end, the goal is the same: it is not as simple as the media reports, and there is always more you wish you didn’t know.

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Survived terrorism, now facing the Indie doc distribution jungle.