United Red Army

The project consists of a film trilogy that traces a history of 1970s ultra-left terrorist groups. Part 1 looks at the 1977 hijacking by the Japanese Red Army of JAL 472 to Dhaka. The film pivots off the audio transcripts of the negotiations between the Dhaka control tower and the lead hijacker. For much of the film, a dark screen shows only the words as audiences hear the tense, yet circuitous, negotiations. The interludes between each day carry archival footage, carrying weary reflections about a leftist politics that was an accidental trojan horse for rightist politics.