Director – Yusaku Matsumoto – 2023 – Japan – Cert. tbc – 127m
*****
Based on a true story; the state attempts to prosecute the software developer of the file sharing programme Winny for copyright violation – plays UK cinemas in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2024 between Friday, 2nd February and Sunday, 31st March
2003. After programmer Isamu Kaneko (Masahiro Takashide) creates a file-sharing programme Winny, the media reports that people are using it to illegally download movies. Across Japan in late November, a series of police raids on flats leads to the arrests of several Winny users, along with its creator. In custody and being questioned, Kaneko is very bad at paying attention. Believing the cops have his and society’s best interests at heart, he cooperates by copying into his own handwriting a confession they have written and signing it, on the verbal understanding that he can change or tweak the document before it is used in court. The interrogating cop, however, has deceived him into making a statement that will stand as evidence in court.
Defence attorney Toshimitsu Dan (Takahiro Miura) agrees to take on Kaneko’s case and is horrified by the computer programmer’s naivety about all things legal. He realises that if a programmer is put in trial because someone has used a programme in a way its creator didn’t expect, programmers in Japan will stop working because of the legal risk, causing the country to fall behind in the programming world. However, egged on by the film companies determined to fight copyright infringement, the State plans to prosecute Kaneko nonetheless.
This highly unusual courtroom drama tackles head on the issue of the extent to which programmers are responsible for what users do with their software. In the process, it effectively contrasts the police mindset (guilty until proven innocent) with that of the defence lawyer with his understanding of due process and the creative programmer who simply creates programmes for the joy of innovation, without really considering how people might make use of his software.
The police don’t come off well, with the police force being shown as deeply corrupt, nor do the media when they slur a whistleblower from inside the force who reveals the existence of a slush fund, an allegation strenuously denied by the force until a mole uses Winny to upload to the internet records of payments to the fund, rendering the allegation irrefutable.
All in all, this is an intelligent drama about computer programming creatives and the State’s knee-jerk response to blame them for everything that happens when programmes are misused. It wisely chooses not to get overly technical, as demonstrated by the lawyer’s coaching his defendant to talk about programming in such a way that non-technically-minded people – such as, for example, the judge – can understand what the programmer is saying. This means it makes for fascinating viewing.
Winny plays UK cinemas in the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2024 between Friday, 2nd February and Sunday, 31st March.
Trailer: