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Documentary film on Hiroshima and Fukushima to be screened at Hiroshima International Film Festival

by Michiko Tanaka, Staff Writer

Aya Domenig, 43, a filmmaker in Switzerland, has created the documentary film The Day the Sun Fell as a critical response to the nuclear age. The film focuses on the damage caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 (Daiichi) nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture. While seeking information on her grandfather, a doctor who treated victims of the atomic bombing after the blast, Ms. Domenig felt moved to convey the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons to the world, and completed the film over the course of five years. The film will be shown at the Hiroshima International Film Festival, the first screening in Japan, at the NTT Cred Hall in downtown Hiroshima at 11 a.m. on November 23.

Ms. Domenig’s maternal grandfather, Shigeru Doi (who died in 1991 at the age of 77) was a physician at the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital (now the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital and Atomic Bomb Survivors Hospital). On August 6, 1945, he saw the bomb’s mushroom cloud from inside a train on the Geibi Line while heading to work from the northern part of the prefecture where he had evacuated. He rushed to the hospital and treated the wounded.

In the film, Ms. Domenig’s grandmother, Kiyomi (who died in 2013 at the age of 87), recalls Shigeru’s reaction to the attack after he took a momentary pause from treating the survivors and returned to their evacuation site. Ms. Domenig also spoke with former nurses who relate the horrifying effects of radiation and former military doctors who share their experiences of the time. She listened, as well, to parents and children who endured the accident at the nuclear power plant in Fukushima. The film runs 78 minutes and is narrated in German with Japanese subtitles.

Shigeru would not speak about his experience, Kiyomi says, even when he was asked about it. Ms. Domenig sought to assemble the story of her family and began shooting footage of her grandmother in the spring of 2010. As she gained a deeper understanding of the atomic bombing, she felt a growing desire to communicate this to people in Europe and drafted a script. With donations from broadcasting stations in Switzerland and Finland, she directed the film and completed it this past summer. The film was released at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland.

“When time passes, people forget,” Ms. Domenig said. “But there are still problems being faced in Hiroshima and Fukushima. I hope this film will be an opportunity to think about those problems.” After the screening on November 23, she will appear to talk about the film. The Hiroshima International Film Festival will take place at four venues in the city of Hiroshima from November 20 to 23.

(Originally published on November 19, 2015)

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