"Traveling with Hibakusha: Across Generations"

A film by Takashi Kunimoto

A film which focuses on "younger A-bomb survivors" who have no clear memories of the atomic bombings and their efforts, and frustrations, at passing on the A-bomb experience. The film follows them as they meet many people during a long voyage at sea, including victims of the Vietnam War and the sole survivor of a Nazi massacre of a Greek village, and start taking action to convey the bombings.

Conveying the A-bomb experience
A never-aging story

Takashi Kunimoto

Born in Tokyo in 1980. After graduating from the faculty of social sciences at Hitotsubashi University, he began making documentary films while employed at a company. His first film "The World CUP between Red and Blue" was about the enthusiastic soccer fans of the 2002 World CUP. He is now working on the staff of a community radio station, an NPO, in Kobe.

In his documentary film "Traveling with Hibakusha: Across Generations," Takashi Kunimoto focuses on the "younger A-bomb survivors" who experienced the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when they were babies or small children and so don't hold clear memories of their ordeal. The film is a record of a voyage organized by the NGO "Peace Boat," which sailed around the world for four months, from September 2008, with a group of A-bomb survivors.

The film opens impressively. After several shots of A-bomb survivors sharing their experiences, the director, serving as narrator, says: "When I listen to the survivors speak about their experiences, I feel at a loss, like I don't have the authority to properly hand down the bombings."

The film then looks at the survivors pondering how to pass on the A-bomb experience and taking action toward this end, while also conveying the director's own concerns. He says that when he boarded the ship, he decided to focus on the younger survivors, but he didn't have a clear idea in mind at the time. The turning point came when the survivors encountered victims of herbicides and defoliants in Vietnam.

Survivors who weren't sure what they could do felt a kinship with the perspective of other survivors of war. The camera follows the younger survivors as they seek ways to fulfill their sense of mission.

"We don't have our own memories of the bombings so we aren't able to relate our personal experiences. But we can still share the knowledge," thought one survivor and began speaking out on the ship.

"It may be impossible to hand down 100% of the A-bomb experience, but we can try to understand the survivor's feelings," Mr. Kunimoto says. "If others sympathize, that will help spread interest in the current state of nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants in the world. Others might grow more aware of the fact that the atomic bombs are not just a thing of the past."

Mr. Kunimoto was born in Tokyo and visited Hiroshima on a school trip when he was a high school student. During this trip, he had the opportunity to listen to the account of an A-bomb survivor. In his university days, he conducted interviews with A-bomb survivors in Nagasaki about their lives. Since that time, the atomic bombings had weighed on his mind and he thought, "I have to do something." So when he learned that Peace Boat was looking for someone to film the voyage, he decided to take part.

The film also looks at the difficulties involved in handing down the A-bomb experience, including critical comments from young people who listened to A-bomb accounts and responded, "All the stories sound the same" and "It's like we're forced to feel sad."

One young man in another country smiled and said that the atomic bombings were akin to "killing flies." Mr. Kunimoto thinks, "The names of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are well known, but what really happened in those cities isn't." He says that Japanese people are fortunate to be able to hear A-bomb accounts from the survivors.

Mr. Kunimoto shot about 250 hours of film and edited it in one year after returning to Japan. He told me: "Documentary films don't show right and wrong; they depict the process of the filmmaker in learning about something they find of interest. I hope the people who see my film all get something different out of it." (Kensuke Murashima, Staff Writer)