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2023 Sarasota Film Festival

AUM: The Cult at the End of the World

20231 hr 46 minUnited StatesEnglish, Japanese

About this film

In 1984, Shoko Asahara started a seemingly innocuous yoga school based in Tokyo. By 1995, the group had evolved into a doomsday cult called Aum Shinrikyo, meaning “Supreme Truth,” whose weapon of choice was sarin, an extraordinarily toxic nerve gas first invented by the Nazis during World War II. An unrelenting, in-depth look at the group, AUM: The Cult at the End of the World weaves a chilling narrative from Asahara’s claims of being a reincarnation of Buddha to the 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway system that left 14 dead and injured an estimated 6,000 additional civilians.

Credits

Director
Ben Braun, Chiaki Yanagimoto
Filmmaker
Ben Braun, Chiaki Yanagimoto
Producer
Ben Braun, Chiaki Yanagimoto, Dan Braun, Josh Braun, Rick Brookwell
Executive Producer
Ben Schwartz
Cinematographer
Yohei Tateishi, Tim Sutton
Editor
Keita Ideno
Composer
Dan Braun, Charlie Braun

Premiere: No

Based on the book by: David E. Kaplan

Documentary FeatureForeign
AUM: The Cult at the End of the World
AUM: The Cult at the End of the World — production still