Ernesto

Winner of the Best Film of the Year in the Takasaki Film Festival, this powerful Japan-Cuba co-production is based on the true story of Freddy Maemura Hurtado, a Nikkei born to a father from Kagoshima and a Bolivian mother.

Known as “Ernesto Medico” (doctor) he is determined to help bridge the social inequities in his homeland, so he goes to Cuba to study medicine where he encounters the revolutionary Che Guevara. He soon decides to return home as a guerrilla fighter alongside Che and the National Liberation Army of Bolivia, in a doomed attempt to overthrow the government.

Inspired by “El Samurai de la Revolucion,” a book written by Maemura’s older sister, Mary.