Synopsis

In 1981, young Issei Sagawa of Japan murdered a Dutch student in Paris and ate part of his body. Declared mentally ill, he did not face a normal trial, and after spending two years in a French clinic, he returned to Japan. There he wrote a book, published a manga about his crime and even appeared in pornography. In an attempt to unravel the dark motives that led him to cannibalism, the anthropologists and film-makers Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor perform in 'Caniba', their third full-length film, an atypical and sensory portrait of Sagawa, who more than thirty-five years after the events in Paris, lives suffering a paralysis that keeps him partially immobilized.

In 1981, young Issei Sagawa of Japan murdered a Dutch student in Paris and ate part of his body. Declared mentally ill, he did not face a normal trial, and after spending two years in a French clinic, he returned to Japan. There he wrote a book, published a manga about his crime and even appeared in pornography. In an attempt to unravel the dark motives that led him to cannibalism, the anthropologists and film-makers Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor perform in 'Caniba', their third full-length film, an atypical and sensory portrait of Sagawa, who more than thirty-five years after the events in Paris, lives suffering a paralysis that keeps him partially immobilized.