Saturday, May 21, 2011

In the Radiation Zone: The Children of Minamisoma City, Part 3

This is Part 3 of the behind-the-scenes look at our new feature documentary about the children living in the zone 20-30 km from the damaged nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan.

Due to the orders to stay indoors because of the radiation, the children spend their days inside making origami cranes. A boy brings his irradiated cat to the testing site. Prior to the classes beginning again, I interview the children's elementary school principal about whether he thinks it is safe for the children to attend the school. Radiation-laced rain welcomes the children back to classes.

Editing this together into one cohesive story just makes thinking about these children even harder for me. When we were there filming, our heads were spinning and we didn't really have time to process everything what was happening. When the story is condensed into what really matters, it becomes painfully clear:

Maybe no one can say for certain if these children are in danger or not, but if so, why should the chance be taken with their lives?




2 comments:

Katsuyoshi Ueno said...

Dear Ian,
I'm Katsuyoshi, a Tokyo based photographer, graphic designer and writer.
I truly appreciate your effort on those documentary videos. I like the way you captured the people's situation in Minamisoma not as news-like but as it really is. Evert reaction and message from each figure is very poignant...
By the way I hope you keep your vids available on the other websites like Vimeo or Torrent etc. These days many videos about Fukushima/Radiation in Japan on Youtube have been deleted without even noticing.
I'd like you to keep up your great work and hope to see you sometime in Tokyo.

Ian Thomas Ash said...

Katsuyoshi-san,

Thank you so much for your comment and support. Let's keep this story alive in the press!