Hara’s latest film is a slow-building and devastating epic exposé of the “silent time bomb” of widespread asbestos contamination discovered in the Sennan City area of Osaka in 2005. Made over a full decade working closely with an activist group racing against the clock to trace the devastating roots of the epidemic in the area’s traditional hub of asbestos production and connect with elderly survivors to build their case against the state, Sennan Asbestos Disaster offers a remarkable portrait of a community charged with purpose yet faced with tremendous obstacles. While more ruminative in tone and pace than his earlier action documentaries, Sennan Asbestos Disaster shares the urgency and anger of films such as Sayonara CP and The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On. Indeed, its haunting echoes of the horrific mercury poisoning in Minamata and other toxic calamities that have struck Japan resonate deeply as stark reminders of the lack of state protections for citizens around the world who are exposed to hazardous pollutants.