Japanese filmmaker, Koji Wakamatsu, got a little more than he expected when he and his film crew approached Roumieh prison, north of Beirut:
Filmmaker Koji Wakamatsu was briefly detained by police with two cameramen during a recent visit to Lebanon to attend a film festival, apparently for entering a place where photography is prohibited, sources familiar with the incident said Sunday.
The three were shooting footage near a prison in suburban Beirut around 11 a.m. last Thursday when they were asked by police to show their passports. They were taken inside the prison, handcuffed and moved to a police station and then released after roughly seven hours.
This is, of course, the same prison where Japanese Red Army Member, Kozo Okamoto, was kept for visa violations and later granted political asylum by the Lebanese government. And what exactly was Koji doing in Lebanon?
Wakamatsu, 74, was on a weeklong trip to Beirut after receiving an invitation to the festival, which featured his movie on Japanese Red Army activists…
Clearly he got a little over his head.
Filmmaker Koji Wakamatsu