The Cove aims to change minds in Tokyo

Louie Psihoyos, the former National Geographic photographer who made The Cove, hopes to change public opinion in Japan with the film opening Wednesday at the Tokyo International Film Festival.

But Psihoyos's documentary The Cove centres on the annual dolphin slaughter in the Japanese town of Taiji, and had to be filmed in secret as local police were seeking to stop the film crew for trespassing.

"If we can get the film out to the Japanese people, I think it will be a huge victory for the Japanese people," Psihoyos said from Tokyo on Tuesday.

"I think it's going to be a huge win for the dolphins. Those are my real clients."

The Cove captures a wholesale slaughter of dolphins that takes place once a year in the coastal town, with fisherman driving the dolphins into a cove and killing them with spears.

Psihoyos knows he risks arrest by appearing in Tokyo, but says he plans to stay away from Taiji itself, so as not to inflame tensions with police.

Psihoyos has offered to give the town the profits from his film, which has won dozens of awards at film festivals, if the hunt is ended.

Officials from Taiji claim the hunt is over, but that's the same claim they made in the film — just weeks before they filmed the bloody slaughter of 2,000 dolphins.

Psihoyos said is willing to donate the cash so the fishermen can develop other businesses, such as whale-watching.

"Any of the money that is generated out of Japan, if they stop dolphin-hunting, will go to Taiji," he said.

The Tokyo festival, which opens with a green carpet roll-out and prides itself on its ecological consciousness, was initially reluctant to screen the film.

But The Cove was added to the festival at the last minute and will screen Wednesday in its Japanese premiere.

Psihoyos is also hoping for Japanese distribution.

"Once the Japanese people see this film … I think they will shut down the cove," Psihoyos said. "This is not an animal-rights film. This is a people's rights film for the Japanese people."