Santiago López Jover

1960's Siegheilkirchen, a small town in the Austrian hinterland is steeped in reactionary and ultra-Catholic attitudes. The son of a hard-working innkeeper and his wife, called Snotty Boy by all and sundry, is at odds with the narrow-minded confines of his home town. But his unstoppable talent for drawing gives him an outlet for his discontent.

When Japan opened its borders in 1854 after a period of extreme closure, it was revealed that there were thousands of Japanese Christians hidden around the area of Nagasaki; they had survived during 240 years secretly practicing their religion in their homes. Western nations received the news with joy, but the laws prohibiting Christianity in Japan were still in force, which caused a last wave of religious persecution, the most savage of all. This true story tells the personal experience of one of the survivors, Jinsaburo Moriyama, who was jailed in the prison camp of Tsuwano from 1867 to 1873, when the persecution stopped due to the international pressures.

1960's Siegheilkirchen, a small town in the Austrian hinterland is steeped in reactionary and ultra-Catholic attitudes. The son of a hard-working innkeeper and his wife, called Snotty Boy by all and sundry, is at odds with the narrow-minded confines of his home town. But his unstoppable talent for drawing gives him an outlet for his discontent.

When Japan opened its borders in 1854 after a period of extreme closure, it was revealed that there were thousands of Japanese Christians hidden around the area of Nagasaki; they had survived during 240 years secretly practicing their religion in their homes. Western nations received the news with joy, but the laws prohibiting Christianity in Japan were still in force, which caused a last wave of religious persecution, the most savage of all. This true story tells the personal experience of one of the survivors, Jinsaburo Moriyama, who was jailed in the prison camp of Tsuwano from 1867 to 1873, when the persecution stopped due to the international pressures.