FUKUSHIMA: MEMORIES OF A LOST LANDSCAPE is a passionate and heartrending film about the human cost of the nuclear disaster that smolders on in the wake of last year’s 3/11 earthquake. While the vast majority of independent filmmakers focussed on the spectacle of the tsunami, MATSUBAYASHI Yojyu went straight to the exclusion zone surrounding the damaged plant. On the invitation of a local politician, he entered the liminal world of the refugees living in centers and occasionally following them to visit their ghostly, irradiated homes. Over 30 independent documentaries have been made about the earthquake, but this is by far the most impressive and moving. Professor Abé Markus Nornes of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor will introduce the film, and a Q&A with director Yojyu Matsubayashi will follow the screening.

7:30pm  |  Friday, March 9
International House  |  Coulter Lounge
1414 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL  60637

About the Director

Born in 1979 in Fukuoka, Director Matsubayashi grew up watching films in local theaters. After graduating from Japan Academy of Moving Images, Director Matsubayashi joined the Fukuoka-based NGO Peshawar-kai and was involved with the construction of an irrigation canal in Afghanistan. Besides Afghanistan, he has been involved in the gathering of film footage around the world. His directorial debut Flowers and Troops (2009), an homage sequel to Imamura Shohei’s TV documentary In Search of Unreturned Soldiers (1971), is a documentary about ex-Japanese soldiers who did not return to their home country and continued to live in Japan’s former territorial holdings in various parts of Asia. The film has won the prize for young artists in the Division of Moving Pictures of the First Soichiro Tahara Nonfiction Awards as well as the 33rd Yamaji Fumiko Social Welfare Award.

Sponsors

Sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies Committee on Japanese Studies, International House Global Voices Program, University of Michigan International Institute.

This event is free and open to the public.  Persons with disabilities who may need assistance should contact the Office of Programs & External Relations at 773-753-2274.

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