Onoda - 10,000 Nights in the Jungle

In 1944, Onoda Hiroo, an Imperial Japanese Army officer, is sent on a dangerous mission to Lubang Island in the Philippines. With some troops already stationed there he must stop the Allied forces from advancing. As a guerrilla warfare specialist, Onoda is the perfect man for the job. His orders are strict and he follows them to the letter: under no circumstance is he to surrender. The news that Japan surrendered in 1945 never reaches him, so he continues the war, dismissing later reports of the surrender of Japan as fake news. Only in 1974, 10,000 days after the end of the war, does Onoda himself finally surrender.

Always intrigued by stories about polar expeditions and solo sailors, French director Arthur Harari was made aware of the true story of Onoda by his father. He felt an immediate appeal and decided to make the story into a film — a tale of an odyssey that lasts for thirty years.