Nuclear Meltdown

Friends After 3.11 劇場版

2011

In March 2011, Japan was struck by a catastrophic earthquake, with the devastating tsunami that followed causing a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power station that sent ripples of discontent throughout the country. Director Iwai Shunji's Friends after 3.11 (2011) is a deeply personal documentary which uses the statements of some of his closest friends to express the views of a society in a state of political despondency.

Alone Again in Fukushima

2023

“Alone Again is Fukushima” is the long-awaited sequel to "Alone in Fukushima" (2015), which followed Naoto Matsumura, a man who remained in the nuclear zone in Fukushima to tend animals. The film has followed Naoto for nearly a decade and portrays how Naoto and the animals survived the residents' return to the town, Tokyo Olympics, and COVID-19. In the course of 10 years, many animals and humans were born and died. But Naoto remained in the town and took care of the animals. He raised chickens and kept bees in order to survive. In 2017, Tomioka became the place where people can come back to live, however most young people didn’t return. There is no end in sight for the nuclear crisis in Fukushima. The contaminated water is overflowing and will be pumped out to the ocean soon. Meanwhile the government is trying to restart the nuclear reactors all over the country. The film will give us a chance to reflect on this situation by looking at how Naoto and animals survive in Fukushima.

100 Years of the Atom

2020

The exciting story of the splitting of the atom, a scientific breakthrough of incalculable importance that ushered in the nuclear age, has a dark side: the many events in which people were exposed to radiation, both intentionally and by accident.

Savagely, silence

2017

December 21, 2015. The image of a fox was captured by a camera inside the unit 2 building at Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant... A film-essay about contemporary Japan in the aftermath of March 2011 earthquake.

Containment

2015

Every nuclear weapon made, every watt of electricity produced from a nuclear power plant leaves a trail of nuclear waste that will last for the next four hundred generations. We face the problem of how to warn the far distant future of the nuclear waste we have buried --but how to do it? How to imagine the far-distant threats to the sites, what kinds of monuments can be built, could stories or legends safeguard our descendants? Filmed at the only American nuclear burial ground, at a nuclear weapons complex and in Fukushima, the film grapples with the ways people are dealing with the present problem and imagining the future. Part observational essay, part graphic novel, this documentary explores the idea that over millennia, nothing stays put.

Nuclear Nation

2012

After the 11 March 2011 tsunami and nuclear disaster, residents of Futaba, a town in Fukushima Prefecture, are relocated to an abandoned high school in a suburb of Tokyo, 150 miles south. With a clear and compassionate eye, filmmaker Atsushi Funahashi follows the displaced people as they struggle to adapt to their new environment. Among the vivid personalities who emerge are the town mayor, a Moses without a Promised Land; and a farmer who would rather defy the government than abandon his cows to certain starvation.

Souls of Zen: Ancestors and Agency in Contemporary Japanese Temple Buddhism

2012

The Japanese population’s reaction to the catastrophe of March 2011 has been described as “stoic” by the Western media. The Japanese code of conduct is indeed deeply rooted in their Buddhist traditions, and young filmmakers Tim Graf and Jakob Montrasio observe in detail what this means for the people and their religion. At graveyards, in temples, at monasteries and with families, they question the impact this triple affliction has had on the lives and beliefs of the inhabitants. How deeply do their beliefs affect their grieving? What role do the monks play in assisting people with their grief? And, what effects has this enormous catastrophe had on their religious rituals? SOULS OF ZEN inserts the events of March 2011 into the context of traditional Zen Buddhism, examining Japan’s religiousness and the beliefs of those practising it at a crucial turning point.

The Message from Fukushima

2012

Short documentary about the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The Horses of Fukushima

2013

Fukushima's Minami-soma has a ten-centuries-long tradition of holding the Soma Nomaoi ("chasing wild horses") festival to celebrate the horse's great contribution to human society. Following the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in the wake of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami, local people were forced to flee the area. Rancher Shinichiro Tanaka returned to find his horses dead or starving, and refused to obey the government's orders to kill them. While many racehorses are slaughtered for horsemeat, his horses had been subjected to radiation and were inedible. Yoju Matsubayashi, whose "Fukushima: Memories of the Lost Landscape" is one of the most impressive documentaries made immediately after the disaster, spent the summer of 2011 helping Tanaka take care of his horses. In documenting their rehabilitation, he has produced a profound meditation on these animals who live as testaments to the tragic bargain human society made with nuclear power.

Tenzo

2019

To address the social crisis, Chiken - a buddhist monk - throws himself into various tasks such as a suicide helpline, in his temple in Yamanashi. In Fukushima, his old mate Ryûgyô - whose temple was wrecked by the tsunami - lives in a portacabin and works on construction sites.

Haru Wo Tsugeru Machi

2020

A documentary about the people of Hirono, a city located 20 km away from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station. Immediately after the Great East Japan Earthquake, the whole town was forced to evacuate. In 2019, 80% of the population at the time of the earthquake is back in town.

Fukushima: Is There a Way Out?

2015

3.11: Surviving Japan

2013

True story of an American volunteer who discovered the unvarnished truth about the Fukushima nuclear disaster cover-up while living in Japan. A critical look at how the authorities handled the nuclear crisis and Tsunami relief by an American who volunteered in the clean-up.

The Toxic Pigs of Fukushima

2020

The Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 triggered a tsunami, nuclear meltdown and mass evacuations in Fukushima Prefecture. Today, as part of a Government push to encourage resettlement, local hunters have been enlisted to dispose of radiated Wild Boars that now roam the abandoned streets and buildings. This short film follows a lone hunter into an isolated and changed landscape. Along the way, other citizens who still live near the reactor share their perspectives on the aftermath. "The Toxic Pigs of Fukushima" was inspired by the photographs of co-producers Toru Hanai and Yuki Iwanami. The original score was written and performed by renowned ambient artist Midori Takada.

Fukushima: Is Nuclear Power Safe?

2011

Six months after the explosions at the Fukushima nuclear plant and the release of radiation there, Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to discover whether nuclear power is safe. He begins in Japan, where he meets some of the tens of thousands of people who have been evacuated from the exclusion zone. He travels to an abandoned village just outside the zone to witness a nuclear clean-up operation. Jim draws on the latest scientific findings from Japan and from the previous explosion at Chernobyl to understand how dangerous the release of radiation is likely to be and what that means for our trust in nuclear power.