YOKOHAMA (Kyodo) The Yokohama District Court has banned a Tokyo civic group from staging protests around a movie theater in Yokohama that plans to screen the Oscar-winning U.S. documentary "The Cove" about a contentious dolphin kill in Wakayama Prefecture, its Japanese distributor said Friday.
The court decision on the injunction Thursday prohibits making loud speeches within a 100-meter radius of the movie theater and entering the cinema without permission, the distributor Unplugged Inc. said.
As the movie theater is planning to screen the film from July 3, scores of people from the Tokyo group staged street protests around the premises on June 12, prompting the theater to seek a court injunction.
The theater said it will show the movie as scheduled. The film, mostly shot in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture, partly with hidden cameras, won the 2010 Academy Award for best documentary.
"The Cove" has drawn criticism from groups that claim that it is anti-Japanese. They have been intimidating theaters planning to show the film, leading three of the cinemas in Tokyo and Osaka as well as universities in Tokyo to cancel the screenings.
The film will be screened at six movie theaters in Tokyo and five other cities from July 3, despite protests that caused earlier cancellations, Unplugged said earlier.
The five other cities where the film will be screened are Osaka, Sendai, Yokohama, Kyoto and Hachinohe, Aomori Prefecture. They will be followed by cinemas in 16 other locations nationwide, including Hiroshima, Nagoya, Fukuoka and Okinawa.