The Connecting Bridge (架け橋, 2013)

Japan has the most advanced early warning system for earthquakes and tsunami in the world, but that did not prevent 15,885 people from losing their lives in Tōhoku following the fifth largest earthquake ever recorded.  Many of these fatalities were caused by inadequate local knowledge (see: Reiko Hasegawa, IDDRI) and poor communication (See: S. Fraser, et al., Report). 

While the triple disaster of 3/11 was terrifying enough for the hearing population of Japan, imagine how exponentially more terrifying it must have been for the deaf community.  It was exactly this thought that spurred deaf documentarian Ayako Imamura (Studio Aya) to pick up her camera and drive to Miyagi Prefecture to find out how the deaf community was coping in the aftermath of the earthquake/tsunami.  Her first stop was the Miyagi Deaf Association, led by Shoju Koizumi, who from their headquarters in Sendai immediately sprang into action to assist their 363 members. 

Imamura focuses her documentary film The Connecting Bridge: 3/11 That Wasn’t Heard (架け橋～聞こえなかった3.11 / Kakehashi - Kikoenakatta 3.11, 2013) on the heart-rending stories of some of those members who survived.  Although many of them had received warnings of the imminent earthquake on their cellphones, in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake cellular communication went out of service.  Not only was this means of communication cut off, but deaf people were also unable to hear the tsunami warning sirens.  This meant that only those people who had thoughtful and concerned neighbours and family members were able to evacuate. 

In Iwanuma City, Imamura meets Teruo Sai and his wife, Naoko Sai, who for forty years have run a barbershop about 2 kilometres from the ocean.  The clock in their barbershop has stopped at the time of the earthquake.  Their shop is covered in mud and debris from the tsunami.  The Sais were unable to hear the announcements and by the time they realised that the tsunami was upon them it was too late to evacuate to the elementary school because the water was already rushing down the street.   Fortunately, they were able to survive on the second floor of their house. 

The Sais’ friends, Nobuko Kikuchi and her husband Tokichi Kikuchi, lost their home altogether.  All that remains is the foundation.  If their hearing neighbours had not taken the time to warn them, the Kikuchis would likely have perished along with their home.  The couple now live in an evacuation shelter.  As they are the only deaf people in the shelter, they find it very stressful because they never understand what is going on.  It soon becomes evident that the biggest communication problem is that the deaf are often too shy – or in a very Japanese way unwilling to inconvenience others – to let people know what their special needs are.  As deafness is not a visible disability, the hearing community often does not notice that there is a communication failure. 

I was reminded while watching The Connecting Bridge of something Marlee Matlin, the Oscar-winning deaf actress once said: “I hope I inspire people who hear. Hearing people have the ability to remove barriers that prevent deaf people from achieving their dreams.” (Source: Business Week, May 22, 2001).  This also appears to be the mission of Ayako Imamura, who hopes that by telling the stories of deaf people to inspire hearing people to take notice and to help build bridges between the hearing and the deaf communities. 

Imamura is not an objective filmmaker but a subjective one who really cares about the people she is filming.  The strong bond that she develops with the subjects of her film becomes evident when Mrs. Kikuchi becomes overwhelmed with emotion and Imamura steps in to embrace her.  The confusion and fear felt by these survivors is truly moving – particularly the story of Enao Kato, an elderly gentleman who never learned how to read during his wartime childhood.  This means that he is unable to read the instruction manuals for his new property in the evacuation shelter until Mr. Koizumi comes to assist him.

Koizumi is the strongest “connecting bridge” in this film, which is why it is so tragic in the middle of the film when he is struck down by a stroke.  His determination to recover from his stroke so that he can return to helping others in his community is truly inspiring.  The small acts of kindness depicted in the film, from the young volunteers trying to learn basic signs, to the barbershop customer who waits for the Sais to reopen before getting his hair cut again, are a reminder of how little it takes to reach out to others in our own neighbourhoods to make them feel understood and valued.  Not only can thinking of the needs of others spread good will, but when disaster strikes it can also save lives. 

Notes from the Q+A with Ayako Imamura (post-screening at Nippon Connection 2014)

• Imamura bonded with Koizumi, the head of the Miyagi Deaf Association, over a shared love of beer.  It also turned out that Koizumi’s hearing daughter is the exact same age as Imamura and Koizumi himself is the same age as Imamura’s own father, so they bonded over this coincidence as well.
• Regarding the soundtrack:  someone asked why she had used a male narrator when she, the director, is female.  Imamura responded that she chose a male narrator because the central story for her was that of Koizumi.  His own personal story begins and ends the film, and without him she would never had met the people he and the Miyagi Deaf Association were assisting. 
• Regarding the music:  The closing of the film features the song “Not Alone” (1人じゃない / Hitori ja nai) by Kazuhiro Kojima quite prominently.  Imamura chose this song because she liked the lyrics so much and felt that they fit the message she was trying to get across with her film.  [It did not come up in the Q+A but I should note that Kazuhiro Kojima wrote the song “Not Alone” for the survivors of the Tōhoku disaster so its meaning resonates quite deeply for a Japanese audience (See: Vimeo).  Kojima is also the male narrator of the film.]
• Imamura’s film training in the States was actually on film, so she taught herself how to use digital technology. 
• Imamura expressed her fear of communicating with people who do not know how to sign.  Through her documentaries she has learned from other members of the deaf community about how to overcome these fears.  In particular, she mentioned how inspirational Tatsuro Ota, the surf shop owner who was the subject of her documentary Coffee and Pencil (珈琲とエンピツ, 2011) has been to her in the way that he builds communication bridges between himself and his hearing customers. 
• Imamura’s current documentary project will profile a deaf family. 

Interview with Ayako Imamura

After the Q+A at Nippon Connection 2014, I had a chance to interview Imamura with the assistance of American ASL interpreter Joanna Martin who was flown in from Berlin for The Connecting Bridge’s German premiere.  You can see the amazing Joanna at work on YouTube interpreting an event with Berlin-based American author Michael Lederer into DGS (German Sign Language / Deutsche Gebärdensprache).  Imamura’s mother was also on hand for assistance with JSL (Japanese Sign Language /日本手話 / Nihon Shuwa).  15 years ago, Imamura spent a year studying filmmaking in the States and learned ASL while she was there (there were no courses in ASL available to her in Japan at that time).  She teaches at a school for the deaf in Japan which has close ties with a school in Manitoba (Anglophone Canadians also use ASL).

Having grown up in Canada with co-workers and Easter Seals campers whose primary language was ASL, I was full of questions for Imamura about the differences between North American and Japanese deaf culture.  Some interesting facts:

• Japan was slow to introduce universal education for its deaf population.  As a result, many elderly people did not learn to read and write or to do standard JSL until later in life.  Although Imamura was fuzzy on the dates, she had the impression that until about 30 years ago it was challenging for deaf people to receive a full education. 
• When Imamura went to university, it was difficult for her to get assistance with note-taking, etc.  This was in stark contrast to her experience at California State University, Northridge, which has a strong deaf community (they are home to the National Center on Deafness).  Her experience in the United States seemed to inspire her to fight for more rights in Japan.  I noticed on the website of the Japanese Federation of the Deaf that sign language did not get officially recognized as a language by the Japanese federal government until 2011!! 
• When Imamura was growing up in the 1980s, closed captioned was not yet available for the deaf community.  As a result, she was bored by anime and other television series because she did not understand what was going on.  Her saving grace was the introduction of video technology.  Although most foreign films and series shown on TV in Japan are dubbed, they have a subbing culture for cinema.  Imamura’s father picked up E.T. (1982) from the video store for her when she was little and she loved it.  Her early movie education was mainly foreign films because they were the only ones with subtitles when she was growing up.  The irony was not lost on Imamura that her native land’s movie and television culture was foreign to her because they did not use closed captioning.
• Modern technology (e-mail, text messaging, etc. has made communication between the deaf and hearing communities a lot easier but there is a major generation gap for elderly people who find new technology challenging.   Many of them still use faxes for long distance communication. 
• It was clear from the context in The Connecting Bridge that Imamura would have come into contact with the stories of many of the Miyagi Deaf Association’s 363 members, so I asked her how she selected which people to use in the documentary.  She told me that she focused on the stories of survivors.  A lot of deaf people did not survive the disaster and the grief of their families was too fresh for her to intrude on their lives.  There were also many survivors who felt uncomfortable with the presence of a camera / a stranger documenting their difficult circumstances.  So, the people that feature in the films were the ones who opened themselves up to Imamura --- I could really feel when watching the film that the director came to care for the individuals she was recording, and that this friendship would likely continue after the film was done.
• The subtitles are very prominent in this film.  Imamura chose white with black outline for the narrator.  Blue with white outline is used when men are speaking and red with white outline when women are speaking. 

The Connecting Bridge: 3/11 That Wasn’t Heard

架け橋～聞こえなかった3.11

Kakehashi - Kikoenakatta 3.11

Studio Aya, 74 min.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2014

A2-B-C (2013)

A subjective documentary like Ian Thomas Ash’s A2-B-C (2013), is difficult for me to watch with any sort of objectivity.  Having been a mother of two young children when I lived in Tokyo, and having many close friends with children in Japan, the familiar scenes of dusty Japanese playgrounds, friendly hoikuen (nursery schools), and concerned parents’ groups stuck a deep chord with me.   

Ash also makes it clear from his opening confrontation 12 days after the nuclear meltdown in Fukushima with Dr. Shunichi Yamashita, the government advisor on radiation health, that he is firmly on the side of the families affected by the disaster. Although he does interview a wide range of people from workers hired to “decontaminate” houses to local politicians, the main focus of A2-B-C (still called by its earlier title A2 when it screened at Nippon Connection in June) is to give voice to the most at risk people whose views are not being taken seriously enough by the powers that be: the mothers and children affected by the fallout of the Fukushima disaster.

In particular, Ash turns his attentions to mothers and children living in Date City (pronounced with two syllables: “da-tay”), 60km northwest of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.  Because the city lies outside of the 30km exclusion zone, the families living in this area have no access to funding to move elsewhere in Japan.   Although this community is further away, these communities northwest of Daiichi lie in the path of the radioactive plume.  Most of the families living here feel helpless.  They can’t sell their homes to fund a move because no one will buy them.  Without government assistance it is impossible to give up their property and jobs and start with nothing somewhere else. 

Having resigned themselves to the fact that they are stuck where they are, the mothers that Ash follows are educating themselves on how radiation works and are challenging the system when they feel that they are being given inaccurate or misleading information.  Mothers are afraid to let their children play outside, to allow their children drink school milk because it is being sourced locally, or even allow their children to go to school because there is a major radiation hotspot just on the other side of the school fence.  Recently, there has even been talk of feeding the schoolchildren locally sourced rice regardless of the hazards. 

The community is living with the fear of cancer hanging over their heads.  Rumours abound of young women having abortions or having already given up the idea of getting married for fear that they have already been affected by radiation.  The children go to school and to the playground with “glass badges” that monitor the amount of radiation they are being exposed to on a daily basis.  The title of the film is taken from the thyroid examination results that the children have taken.  One of the most disturbing scenes in the film is when a group of children discuss their A2 thyroid cysts and seem resigned to the fact that they will likely one day develop cancer.  The mothers don’t even trust the hospital thyroid test results because they are being prevented from paying private hospitals for independent results.

Ian Thomas Ash is the voice behind the camera for most of the 70-minute film, apart from a sweet scene where one of the young daughters turns the tables on him and photographs him and in a tension-filled scene when a school vice principle confronts him about filming on school property without permission.  One of the most interesting aspects of the film is how close Ash gets to the families whose stories he is telling.  You can really feel his genuine concern and compassion for these people who feel left adrift in a sea of misinformation. 

One of the more frustrating aspects of the film is this lack of clear information.  The average viewer does not understand what a safe radiation reading is, how radiation works, or what the thyroid test results really mean.  There is also a lack of context about how reasonable it is for the residents of Fukushima Prefecture to mistrust government information – after all, there is a long history of government officials from the local to national level in Japan putting industry ahead of the health and well-being of communities.  For many, the Fukushima disaster brings back memories of what happened in Minamata,Niigata, Yokkaichi, and elsewhere.  While I was frustrated by the lack of clear context in the film, at the same time that frustration mirrors that of the people living in the shadow of the nuclear plant.  Ash has made a film that puts us into the shoes of the people who are living daily with the fear of the unknown.  The fear of a future that may be filled with illness and suffering for themselves and their children.

It was a film that had to be made.  A2-B-C won the jury adjudicated Nippon Visions Award at Nippon Connection 2013 to much applause.  The award includes JVTA (Japan Visualmedia Translation Academy) funding for subtitling his next film.  Ash is working on a follow up film about Fukushima which will be his third film on the devastating effects of the nuclear meltdown.  His first film, In the Grey Zone (2012) was filmed closer to the Daiichi plant. 

To learn more about Ian Thomas Ash, check out his official website and Robin Caudell’s article on Ash winning the Nippon Visions Award.

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2013

#nippon13 #nc2013

Isamu Hirabayashi’s 663114 (2011)

The artistic response to the devastation wrought by the Tohoku earthquake and the ensuing tsunami and nuclear fallout at Fukushima over the past year has been immense.  The Yamagata International Documentary festival was inundated with documentaries addressing a wide range of responses to the events of March 11, 2011.  Some artists, such as TOCHKA have become directly involved in the effort to restore a sense of normalcy to the lives of the people of the region.

One of the most profound responses to the disaster is Isamu Hirabayashi’s Noburo Ofuji Award winning animated short 663114 (2011).  The environment and the problematic nature of the relationship of human being to the environment has been a recurring theme in Hirabayashi’s experimental films from the highly allusive piece A Story Constructed of 17 Pieces of Space and 1 Maggot (2007) to the overtly political Conversations with Nature (2005).

The title looks like a code, but it is actually a collection of significant numbers.  The Fukushima disaster occurred 66 years after the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  3/11 marks the date of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and 4 are the number of reactors that were damaged at Fukushima Daiichi.

On the surface, 663114, is a simple, straightforward animation, but upon closer examination one finds that it has as many layers as a tree has rings.  An ancient cicada crawls slowly up a vertical surface, which we learn through the first person narration is representative of a tree.  The tree’s surface is decorated with inkan (印鑑), the familiar red stamps that are used in lieu of signatures in Japan.  The cicada tells us that he is 66 years old, born the film implies, at the time of the atom bomb. 

In addition to being spoken aloud in a deep, guttural, masculine voice, the narration also appears in shaky, black handwritten English:

Once every 66 years,

I emerge from the ground, leave offspring and die.
Before mating,
I shed my hard shell at the risk of my life.
Our ancestors have continued this cycle countless times.
The soil of this country is very fit for us to live in.
It is free of strong pesticides and there are no landmines.
The water is delicious so the sap is delicious as well.
I will climb as high as I can.
Aiming higher and higher.
It is our natural instinct.
To survive and leave offspring.
Since the moment of shedding skin is life risking.
We choose a tree that is tall, sturdy and won’t shake that much.
Our ancestors have continued this cycle countless times.
Through the various hardships.

Though slow, the cicada’s pace is steady and its movements repetitive.  In contrast to the reassuring movements of the cicada and its narration, the music and groaning voices of the soundtrack create a growing sense of unease.  Soon, the cicada pauses and begins to moult.  Just when he is at his most vulnerable, moments after emerging from his skin, the earthquake strikes.  The vertical surfaces representing the tree are thrown off kilter, and many of the red inkan stamps go flying. 

The cicada, resilient creature that he is, has survived this initial onslaught by clinging to his shed skin.  He says that he needs to stretch his wings as soon as possible, but before he can do so the tsunami strikes.  Black waves resembling claws reach out towards the cicada and soon the screen is awash with black undulating waves.  The terror of the tsunami is expressed on the soundtrack in guttural growls and the haunting cries of voices that are suggestive of the thousands of innocent victims of this natural catastrophe.

The waves recede and the cicada, though injured, still clings on with one remaining leg to the damaged husk of his shed skin.  “I won’t die” the cicada declares, determined to survive and leave offspring as his ancestors did before him.  A buzzing sound announces the arrival of a black, inky cloud signifying the radiation from the manmade nuclear disaster. 

Black rain and deep-voiced throat singing accompany the closing credit sequence.  When the rain has passed and the credits are complete, the screen goes black and then reprises the opening credit sequence.  However this time the inkan stamps are muddled together and blurred, and the voice is no longer deep and masculine but distorted and echoing.  We hear the approach of the cicada before we see him this time, and when he appears on screen we see that he has been altered beyond all recognition by the nuclear disaster. 

I am a 66 year cicada.

Once every 66 years,
I emerge from the ground, leave offspring and die.
66 years ago, when I was born
I’ve heard that there was a big earthquake and a big tsunami.
There was also a big accident.
I will risk my life to shed this hard shell before mating.
Our ancestors have continued this cycle countless times.
The soil of this country is very fit for us to live in.
I love this country.

It is significant that Hirabayashi chose a cicada to represent the living creatures, human and otherwise, of Japan.  Insects hold a special place in the hearts of the Japanese, and the cicadas are one of the important signifiers of summer.  One cannot imagine a summer in Japan without the song of the cicadas and children delight in discovering and examining the skins of the cicadas when they moult.  It is a symbol of reincarnation, appearing metaphorically in many significant works of literature such as The Tale of Genji.  Cicadas are also a symbol of longevity as they are one of the longest living insects who spend much of their life cycle underground (normally 2-5 years). 

The film looks like a cutout film made of washi paper and ink, but Hirabayashi made it using images and textures that he found on the internet.  The inkan stamps on the surface of the tree are metaphorically significant in the film.  In Western culture, we do still use rubber stamps to make documents official, and this tradition gave rise to the English idiom “to rubber stamp” something, which is usually used to describe a bureaucrat approving something automatically without proper consideration.  In Japan, the stamp culture runs even deeper with individuals, artists, and corporations all using stamps as their signature.

When watching 663114 the first time, I was reminded of the common hanko (判子) stamp that one would use to sign for the post, or to sign into work, and I thought that each of the stamps stood for individuals affected by the disaster.  But then I realized many of the red stamps were more complex than the kind used by individuals so I contacted Hirabayashi to ask him about their significance.  Hirabayashi told me that the inkan are a metaphor for contracts [of the kind we would call “red tape” in English].  He went on to explain that after the war in Japan contracts have been given preference over the feelings of people.  In the aftermath of Fukushima, he feels that this bad attitude has risen to the surface.  

Therefore, the red stamps in 663114 represent the negative force of bureaucracy, the rules that govern a society, in contrast to the enduring life force of the cicada, who struggles to survive at any cost.  It is a powerful film, and although it addresses a very specific Japanese historical moment, the universality of its message has not been lost on international festival audiences.  It received a warm reception at last year’s Viennale and it also got a special mention in the Generation Section at the Berlinale.  The jury in this division is made up of eleven children and seven teenagers.  They said of 663114:

Visuals and sound melded together flawlessly to create a philosophical and layered masterpiece. The director conveys his message, beyond all conventions. Through a simple metaphor he portrays the survival of a culture, even in the face of catastrophe. (source)

Hirabayashi used the platform to remind people around the world of the seriousness of the crisis in Fukushima: "Children are being exposed to dangerous radioactivity a year after the earthquake. It is our responsibility as Japanese adults to protect the children."

The soundtrack of the film is an artwork all of its own.  It was composed by Osaka-based sound producer Takashi Watanabe.  During the Viennale press conference for 663114, Watanabe explained that they approached the soundtrack as if it would be an offering to a temple.  He looked to Buddhism and Shintoism in his desire to create a new kind of sacred music.  Keitarō Iijima (Studio 301), the sound producer on 663114, explained that they used Japanese food for making the soundtrack including nattō (fermented soybeans), dried Japanese noodles and also cabbage.  He echoed Watanabe’s sentiments about the sacredness of the project for them, emphasizing that he tried to have a sense of respect for the food that they used throughout the production.

663114 will be screened at Nippon Connection in May.  Check out Hirabayashi’s website and youtubechannel to learn more about this fascinating filmmaker.

Director: Isamu Hirabayashi

Music: Takashi Watanabe

Throat: Hideo Kusumi

Voice: Midori Kurata

Sound Mix: Yusuke Toyoura

Sound Design: Keitao Iijima

Foley Assistant: Momoko

Art Director: Ken Murakami

Animation Assistant: Mina Yonezawa

This review is part of Nishikata Film Review’s ongoing series on Noburo Ofuji Award winners:

Film review by Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012

Radioactivists – Protest in Japan since Fukushima (2011)

The earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011 and the ensuing nuclear disaster were a wake-up call not only for the citizens of Japan but for people around the world living with nuclear energy.  If a catastrophe of this magnitude could happen in a country as technologically advanced as Japan, then surely it could happen closer to home.  The notion that local governments are looking out for the best interests of the people when it comes to nuclear energy has been forever destroyed by this event.

One of the countries most deeply impacted by increased anti-nuclear sentiment in the wake of the Japanese disaster has been Germany, where the government was pressured into announcing a commitment to abandon nuclear power on May 30, 2011. By chance, two young politically aware Germans, Julia Leser and Clarissa Seidel, were in Japan during the catastrophe.  Leser, a student of Japanology and politics at Leipzig University, had just completed a year abroad at Waseda.  Her friend Seidel, a recent media studies graduate, had joined her for a short holiday.  Two days after the earthquake hit, the two returned to Germany where they were frustrated about the lack of media coverage of the growing anti-nuclear movement in Japan that they were following on websites like J-Fissures and Shirōtono Ran.  Inspired by the by this, Leser and Seidel returned to Japan with a camera to make their first documentary: Radioactivists – Protest in Japan since Fukushima (2011)

Radioactivists focuses exclusively on the reaction to the nuclear disaster in Tokyo.  The first Shirōto no Ran (素人の乱/Revolt of the Amateurs) demonstration was held in Koenji on April 10^th.  With an estimated 15,000 people in attendance, it was the largest protest of its kind in Japan since the 1970s.  Seidel and Leser tell the story through lively footage of the protests and the testimony of the key figures organizing the movement:  Hajime Matsumoto, an entrepreneur and activist who founded the Shirōto no Ran movement, the writer Yoshihiko Ikegami who is editor in chief of political magazine Gendai Shisō, and Keisuke Narita, an anarchist, activist, and owner of a DIY-Infoshop in Shinjuku.  The political and social ramifications of this movement are put into context in the film by interviews with the political scientist Chigaya Kinoshita and the sociologist Yoshitaka Mōri.

Matsumoto painting a flag with the word "KAISAN" (解散/dissolution) on the front step of his recycle shop.

For first time documentary filmmakers, I was impressed that Leser and Seidel were able to whittle down  over 20 hours of footage into a neat 72 minute film.  Apart from some inelegant transitions between sections of the film, it is a strong documentary with a nice balance of information and images.  The emphasis is firmly placed on giving voice to the concerned citizens of Tokyo with the filmmakers themselves content to stay behind the lens.  The behind-the-scenes footage of the organization of the second protest in Shibuya in May shows the jocular good-will of the organizers to get as many people as possible to join in the demonstration while at the same time doing their best not to irritate the police or the park attendants of Yoyogi Park. 

Prof. Steffi Richter with Clarissa Seidel and Julia Leser at Japan Week, Frankfurt am Main

See more photos from this event on Google Plus.

The audience at Japan Week for the premier of Radioactivists last Saturday was a lively crowd with many  activists in attendance who had attended Occupy Frankfurt earlier that day.  It was an eye-opening experience for many to realize how lucky they were with their ability to protest openly in Germany compared to the much more tightly regulated protests in Japan.  For example, in Japan the police are able to detain people without charge for up to 23 days – a time period which can lead to innocent people losing their jobs if applied injudiciously by police. 

Although Radioactivists makes the large numbers of police at the demonstrations look out of proportion to the peaceful nature of the protesters and allows Keisuke Narita to share his grievances about police behaviour, on the whole the film tries to maintain a positive impression of the first three Shirōto no Ran demonstrations.  This is not an anti-police or anti-government film, but a documentation of a group of people entreaty to their fellow citizens to join them in their call for an end to the use of nuclear energy in Japan.  The promotion of good will is aided in a large part by the participation of Human Recovery Project, a network of punk and rock bands who do charity work in the Tohoku region.  The musicians add a celebratory, festival atmosphere to the marches.  The most moving moment in the film for me was a heartfelt performance of Kiyoshiro Imawano's anti-nuclear cover version of Eddie Cochran's  "Summertime Blues". 

Radioactivists is really just a snapshot of the anti-nuclear movement in Tokyo between March and June.  Due to budgetary constraints, the makers were unable to travel to cities like Osaka and Kyoto where anti-nuclear protest has also been significant.  The film ends with footage of the third demonstration in June as it winds along the streets of Shinjuku.  Since Leser and Seidel finished shooting the film in June, the demonstrations have continued on a bi-monthly basis with more and more participants at each event.  For more information about the documentary and updates on the protests, you can follow the filmmakers on Twitter or on their blog.  I do hope that the filmmakers are inspired / get the funding to make a sequel.


16 January 2012 UPDATE: This film is now available on DVD with Japanese, English, German, and Spanish subtitles.  Click here for more details.

RADIOACTIVISTS – Protest in Japan since Fukushima

Germany/Japan 2011, 72 min.

Directed + Produced by:

Julia Leser + Clarissa Seidel

Editor:

 Clarissa Seidel

Additional Photography:

Arseny Rossikhin

Associate Producers:

Roger Zehnder

Yoshihiro Akai

Graphic Design:

Clemens Berger

René Hänsel

Original Music:

Junsuke Kondo

We Want Wine

ECD

Translation:

Yasuo Akai

Featuring:

Yoshihiko Ikegami

Chigaya Kinoshita

Hajime Matsumoto

Keisuke Narita

Yoshitaka Mōri

Human Recovery Project 

Radioactivists had its world premiere on 12 November 2011 at:

This event was sponsored by Nippon Connection:

Rokkasho Rhapsody (六ヶ所村ラプソディー, 2006)

In his famous poem “Ame ni mo Makezu”, Kenji Miyazawa writes of wandering bewildered in the summer cold. One does not normally apply the word “cold” to Japan in the summer, but in Tohoku and eastern Hokkaido a cold, wet wind known as Yamase blows in the summer months when a high pressure system comes down from Okhotsk in the north, bringing rain and fog with it.

The Yamase winds make the region ideal for the harvesting of wind power and while some wind mills do dot the landscape, their owners encounter problems with selling the energy to the grid because of the tight relationship between the big electricity companies and nuclear power. In Rokkasho Rhapsody (Rokkasho-mura Rhapsody, 2006), director Hitomi Kamanaka takes her documentary camera north in order to investigate the grassroots protests against the building of the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant for spent nuclear fuel.  She interviews a cross-section of the community including people for, against, and unsure.

As the recent disaster in Fukushima has made clear, the nuclear industry in Japan has used its enormous power with government officials at local and national levels to push ahead with the building and maintaining of nuclear facilities in spite of the risks. They deliberately target remote communities with high unemployment in order to curry support from people desperate for any kind of work in order to support their families.

The handful of people who were willing to talk to Hitomi Kamanaka about in-depth about their reservations about the safety of building a nuclear reprocessing plant find themselves labeled as kooks who are standing in the way of progress. In actuality, they are kind-hearted, concerned citizens who fear that their local community won’t realize the mistake they have made acquiescing to the nuclear industry until it is too late. 

Keiko Kikukawa (read more about her) expresses herself through her love of the environment. Her parents resettled in Rokkasho during the war after their home on Sakhalin was burned to the ground. She runs a garden that she calls the Village of Flowers and Herbs and she regularly holds a Tulip Festival as a kind of peaceful protest against the nuclear reprocessing plant. Kikukawa speaks of trying to live her life in the open so that her community can see that she is an honest woman. In spite of her unthreatening appearance, she has endured police surveillance and she has heard that some believe that she is being paid by communists to spread propaganda.

Another voice of protest is the former squid fisherman Mr. Sakai in the Tomari District of Aomori. In the 1980s the local people became bitterly divided on the issue of bringing nuclear energy to the region. Sakai featured prominently in a documentary film that was made at the time called “Tomari is not losing the fight!” Although he is now getting on in years, he continues to hold fast in his anti-nuclear stance and he talks about the extreme pressures put upon his fellow protestors when plans for building went ahead anyway. Those who had been against the proposals lost their jobs. Many of them keep quiet about their beliefs today so that their children won’t lose their jobs. He had to move away. The bottom line was that power and money quashed local protests.

The people supporting the reprocessing plant are not depicted as some kind of evil force, but rather business owners and workers who are putting their practical present concerns ahead of the possibilities that the future may bring. People like the local dry cleaner who hopes to secure a contract with the company cleaning their uniforms, despite the obvious safety concern that he and his workers could come into contact with nuclear residues on the clothes.  The most dangerous opinions expressed by people in this film are the ambivalent ones - like the middle-aged couple who just shrugs and say that they don't care because they are old.

In order to investigate the long-term consequences of living with a nuclear reprocessing plant, Kamanaka travels to Sellafield in Cumbria, England. Here she meets with a local fisherman and a Scottish scientist on the Isle of Man, who talk about the problems of radiation in the Irish Sea. Most striking is Kamanaka’s interview with Janine Allis-Smith, a local activist against nuclear energy. Allis-Smith is of a similar age to Kikukawa-san – and even seems to have the same chubby black-and-white patchwork cat! She speaks about the serious effects the Sellafield plant has had on the health of the locals – particularly those with family working at the plant. Allis-Smith’s son was one of an alarming number of children to develop leukemia. Many of these children did not survive the illness and one common thread that most of them had was a parent working at Sellafield.

Order Now (with English subtitles)

The information about Sellafield forms an important part of the documentary’s message: not only to inform communities like the village of Rokkasho of the realities of living with a nuclear facility, but also that a reminder that this is not just a local but a global issue. Watching this film only five years after it was made I wondered how many disasters like Fukushima do we need to have before people wake up to the fact that we need to look to sustainable resources in order to provide a safe and successful future for the human race? The irony is that the same Yamase winds that make this coastal region ideal for environmentally friendly, sustainable energies such as wind power, will be the same winds that will spread radiation inland if/when disaster strikes.  As one of the scientists points out, it really is just a question of when not if, and sadly we learned in March in Fukushima that he was right.

This film ought to be picked up by public broadcasters around the world so that people can be better informed about the way in which the nuclear industry operates.  It is available on DVD (JP only). Order now from cdjapan.  UPDATE: Now available with English subs from Zakka Films

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2011

Nippon Connection 2011