The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 16 | Issue 16 | Number 3 | Article ID 5188 | Aug 15, 2018

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Fukushima, Media, Democracy: The Promise of DocumentaryFilm

An Interview with Kamanaka Hitomi with Introduction by Katsuya Hirano

Translation and Footnotes by Margherita Long

Transcription by Akiko Anson

The original interview is available here(https://apjjf.org/2018/16/Translation.html).

This interview is accompanied by Margherita R.Long’s essay Japan’s 3.11 Nuclear Disaster andthe State of Exception: Notes on Kamanaka’sI n t e r v i e w a n d T w o R e c e n t F i l m s(http://www.apjjf.org/2018/16/Long.html)

Kamanaka Hitomi

Born in Toyama Prefecture, Kamanaka Hitomientered Waseda University and joined herfriends in a filmmaking club. Kamanaka won ascholarship from the Japanese government andspent time in Canada and the US between 1990and 1995 studying at the National Film Boardof Canada and working as a media activist atPaper Tiger in New York. Kamanaka thenreturned to Japan at the time of the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake that caused over 6,000deaths and displaced over 300,000 people inthe greater Kobe area of Japan in 1995. Whileworking as a volunteer for the victims of theear thquake , she began t o p roducedocumentaries for NHK (Japan BroadcastingCorporation) as a freelance director.

Kamanaka’s first nuclear-related film,Hibakusha at the End of the World (Radiation:A Slow Death, 2003), won several awards,including one from Japan’s Agency for CulturalAffairs for excellence in documentary. The filmshed light on the transnational links of nuclearpolicies and their fatal consequences bycomparing radiation effects at the HanfordNuclear Reservat ion in the State o fWashington, the effects of depleted uranium onIraqi citizens during and after the first GulfWar, and victims of the atomic bomb inHiroshima and Nagasaki.

Hibakusha was the first of three works thatcame to be known as Kamanaka’s “nucleartrilogy.” Her second work, Rokkasho Rhapsody(2006) covered Rokkasho village residents’ riftsand struggles resulting from the still ongoingstruggle over construction of the RokkashoReprocessing Plant in Aomori Prefecture,Japan. Her third work, Ashes to Honey (2010),documented local residents’ struggle againstthe construction of a nuclear power plant inYamaguchi Prefecture. In 2015, Kamanakareleased Little Voices from Fukushima thatfollowed the mothers in Fukushima who madeevery possible effort to protect their childrenfrom external and internal radioactiveexposure, especially the effects of radiation onthe thyroid glands of children following nuclear

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meltdowns, after the 3.11 nuclear disaster. Bycomparing their stories with those of Chernobylvictims’ ongoing struggle in Belarus, LittleVoices highlights the necessity for measures toprotect against radiation. Kamanaka is the onlyfilm director who has worked as a nucleardocumentarian for over two decades, raisingawareness about the gigantic profit-makingstructure known as the “nuclear village” or“nuclear mafia” consisting of internationalnuclear agencies, government, energycompanies, and financial institutions andunderscoring the overwhelming powerexercised by this conglomerate of political andfinancial powers over local residents.Concerned wi th the fundamenta l l yundemocratic nature of nuclear energy policies,Kamanaka combines her filmmaking andactivism. Kamanaka taught filmmaking atTokyo University of Technology from2003-2011 as an associate professor and iscurrently affiliated with Tama Art University asa lecturer. I interviewed Kamanaka in LosAngeles, Tokyo, and Kyoto in 2015 about herviews of 3.11, filmmaking, and activism. Thisinterview is based on those meetings. ProfessorMargherita Long offers an accompanying essay(http://www.apjjf.org/2018/16/Long.html) thatputs Kamanaka’s idea of Fukushima, media,and democracy in a comparative perspective,and offers a reading of Kamanaka’s two mostrecent films. Katsuya Hirano.

What it means to make films after 3.11

Hirano: You’ve been addressing issues ofnuclear power and nuclear exposure for a longtime. Prior to 3.11 you made your “NuclearTrilogy” with the three films Hibakusha at theEnd of the World (2003), Rokkasho Rhapsody(2006) and Ashes to Honey: Toward aSustainable Future (2010). Your most recentfilm Little Voices of Fukushima (2015) is adocumentary shot after 3.11.1 Has theFukushima nuclear accident changed your

approach to filmmaking, or your thinking aboutfilmmaking?

Kamanaka: Let me start by saying that my coremotivation in making the nuclear trilogy was tolessen nuclear exposure worldwide. The morehumans have used nukes – whether we callthem “peaceful applications” of nucleartechnology or “nuclear deterrents” to war – themore toxicity the planet at large has had toabsorb.

What I came to understand in Iraq makingHibakusha at the End of the World was that asthis toxicity spreads into people’s daily lives,future generations are the first to be sacrificed.As I was realizing that humanity would seal itsown fate if it didn’t change course, and as Imyself was meeting so many children who weredying, their futures cut short, I wanted to takesome sort of action. This was my starting place.

Over the course of making the trilogy I waspondering, debating, and filming questions ofwhat could be done and how the status quocould be changed. Yet as soon as I startedsearching for a way to capture that status quoon film, it became clear that even discerning itwould be no easy task: the propaganda-drivenmanipulation of information blocks our view,nuclear power is imposed on us by a powerfullobby that robs us of our options for protectingthe infrastructure of daily life, and basic factsare simply not understood. Also, while I couldsee that this was true on the one hand, I alsocame to appreciate the assumption, held by thegreat majority of Japanese people, that it isimpossible to resist powerful stakeholders likethe government and the electric companies.People have only a faint awareness that theyare themselves the bearers of sovereign powerin a democracy; this became clear to me forinstance as I made Ashes to Honey and sawhow hard it was for the people of Iwaishima tores i s t the Chugoku E lec t r i c PowerCompany.2 So what I wanted to put forward as Idocumented these various issues was a method

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for implementing positive solutions.

Then on March 11th 2011 the reality of a worst-case scenario nuclear accident took precedenceover all the solutions that might havematerialized if we hadn’t run out of time, and Iwas overwhe lmed w i th a f ee l ing o fpowerlessness.

A Poster for Hibakusha

H: So when you say you ran out of time, do youmean that all the films you had made had in acertain sense failed, with respect to theunfolding disaster?

K: Yes that’s exactly what I mean. My intentionhad always been that no one be exposed toradiation, but the 3.11 accident had not onlyexposed a huge number of people, but wascontinuing to expose them, and would keepexposing them into the foreseeable future.Meanwhile to look at Fukushima, the mostseverely affected area, was to see the same“safety myth” propaganda as before themeltdowns sweeping up everything in its path,so that people continued to have no awarenessof risk even as they were awash in radiation.

To some extent the harmful effects willmanifest themselves with time and a sense ofcrisis will finally be born, but by then it will betoo late – my films can’t simply deliver the truthnow when it’s needed; they don’t work liketelevision or the mass media. So I worried thatanything I did might be useless. Yet as I keptpondering what course to follow, I couldn’t helpconcluding that people really need to know thetruth.

It’s like the adage that what goes unrecorded

never happened. If we never make a record ofwhat is unfolding, if we never grasp what isactually taking place, all is forgotten: the past,present and future are rewritten at theconvenience of a designated few. Nothingillustrates this as well as the problem of warmemory. So I made up my mind to make workbased on facts, work with a high-impactmessage. That’s why my first project [after3.11] was Living Through Internal Radiation. Imade it with the goal of increasing radiationexposure literacy, as a kind of tool for viewers.

When I’m making a film I’m always consciousof the fact that viewers will be looking for ananswer. They want instant gratification, a kindof fast-food response to the question “Well,what are we supposed to do?” This was trueespecially after 3.11. I know the desire wellmyself, and that’s why I had such a feeling ofpowerlessness. What would be the point, if Icouldn’t provide something that would beuseful right away? But I knew I had to shakethis conviction; I knew the most importantthing was to convey the truth carefully andaccurately, if only to one or two people at atime. That’s why I made Internal Radiation.

When faced with a critical situation likeFukushima, we tend to think in terms ofmiracles: “If only the world would mend itsways right this second!” But I came tounderstand that the only honest way forwardwas to start with the possible, with what wecan do with the reality before us, even if ityields no immediately useful results.

H: Listening to you I’m hearing two salientpoints. First is that those in economic andpolitical power hold on to their positions byensuring a lack of proper record-keeping, ofdocumentation of fact that are inconvenient tothem and their organizations. So it’s importantto keep recording what has been unfolding invarious places, and to oppose their attitude ofmoving things along in the absence ofdocumentation. That’s the first point.

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The second is that the government respondedquickly to the triple disasters and especially thenuc lear acc ident wi th propaganda,disseminating a new safety myth to counter theprospect of radiation damage in Fukushima andelsewhere. Meanwhile, to leave a record inopposition is to disseminate facts at odds withgovernment propaganda, even if those factsdon’t sink in right away. My sense is that your[immediate post 3.11] work shows not only thatthis is possible, but that it can represent atimely, concrete political intervention into the“state of emergency” that the government usesto conceal the truth and make it legal totrample on human rights.

In other words, what you’ve accomplished bymeans of your documentary filmmaking is tointervene both in history (by carefullyrecording facts and memories) and into thepolit ical status quo (by resist ing thepropaganda of the government, the electriccompany, and the mass media). Without yourintervention, everyone would have fallen in linewith the safety myth.

K: Well, in fact people are falling in line. It’sbecause of the overwhelming power of thegovernment, TEPCO, and the media.

H: True enough. The government offers thesesimplistic resolution policies: “A little soildecontamination and you’ll be all set to moveback!” “There’s no need to worry aboutradiation!” Although people harbor doubts, it’snatural to want to indulge the fantasy.Meanwhile, the message you’ve wanted to sendin opposition is that things are not so simple;that we need a firm grasp of what’s reallyhappening, so that we can start from a place ofcomprehension.

K: Right. But even that is still beyond mostpeople. So the question is how to construct analternative media, and how to use filmic mediato sustain connections. What I’m strugglingwith most now is this problem of continuity: offunding streams, and also of networks.

Tokyo University dining halls are currentlyserving 500-yen lunch specials with names like“Fukushima Plate” and “Namie Dish.” Theyfeature Fukushima rice and vegetables and areenormously popular with women students,selling out in a flash to comments from thestudents along the lines of “It must be safe,because it’s within radiation limits set by thegovernment!” and “If anything, it’s tested foodfrom Fukushima that we can eat withconfidence!” These sorts of scenarios really hithome how resolutely the pro-nuclear energyestablishment has been trivializing theaccident.

With what sort of filmic technique is it possibleto address this mindset, and relay a truth thatis for them unspeakable and unknowable? It’snot clear one could ever secure enough fundingfor such a task!

H: This strategy of replacing the prospect ofinternal radiation with images of eating right,then selling the package to women collegestudents is horrific, isn’t it? It’s unbelievablyunderhanded to satisfy students’ ethicalimpulses by convincing them they’resupporting Fukushima’s economic recovery byconsuming Fukushima food.

K: It seems to me that the nature of discoursewithin Japan has changed dramatically since3.11. We’ve seen the birth of a psychology thatcan recognize a lie perfectly well, theninternalize it regardless.

H: I know what you mean. People know the linethey’re being fed smells fishy, but they end upaccepting it because it’s what they want to hearand it makes them feel safe. They’ve stoppedbeing able to think properly, buffeted since thedisasters by catch-phrases like “recovery”(fukkō), “bonds” (kizuna), and “Hang in ThereFukushima!” (ganbare Fukushima). This is whythey cast reason aside and fall in line withwhomever offers the quickest solution.

K: Yes, it’s as if people are living only by their

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reflexes, playing some sort of mindless videogame. They no longer think in terms of contextsand narratives; there’s no sense of history, orreflecting on cause and effect within the flow oftime and the particulars of chronology. Whatwe’re seeing is the proliferation of a style ofliving only with what is right in front of one’seyes.

Within this sort of ephemeral atmosphere, AbeShinzō’s regime can push through whatever itwants because its majority in the Diet is sosecure. Things they’ve been unable toaccomplish for seventy years of PostwarDemocracy they’re accomplishing now in theblink of an eye. Those of us who can see what’shappening think how awful it is, and that we’dbetter do something, all while being draggedhopelessly along.

One example is the easing of the ThreePrinciples on Arms Exports; apparently it’s finenow for Japan to sell weapons.3 Very fewJapanese are even aware of the fact thatMitsubishi has been allowed to manufactureand sell tanks. While policy-makers areadvancing their own projects the whole processis obscured in a black box, and ordinarycitizens go about their lives with no inkling ofwhat’s happening. By the time the flames comelicking up around them it will be too late! Butthey don’t know this either. In my observation,we have already headed down a prettydangerous path.

H: Here we arrive at the topic of the picturebook (2004) and film project (2015) with whichyou’ve been involved, “What Happens BeforeWar”?4

K: Indeed. And of course one of the issuesaddressed by both those projects is how toresist being swept up in the flow of time, toresist the inevitable militarization. That’s whywhen I’m asked whether my way of makingfilms has changed since 3.11, I have to say thatfundamentally it has not. My films have alwaysaimed to provide the viewer with a full

understanding of historical context, and his orher place within it. It’s only by means of suchan understanding that we can solve problems.That's why I think filmmaking is crucial.

H: It seems to me that in fact the act ofthinking historically is exactly this act ofpondering our historical situation in as broad acontext as possible, and grasping its topologyor phase as specifically as we can. This is whatbeing a historian has in common with your wayof making documentaries.

It’s precisely at times like this, when everyoneis agitated and we feel like the rug is beingpulled out from under us, that we need anapproach that doesn’t lose sight of the bigpicture becomes that much more essential.

K: It seems that documentary films, likehistory, force us to think about what it meansthat we’re socially positioned the way we are.Prior to 3.11, I focused on getting people to askwhy we (people in Japan and other “advancedcountries”) are able to exist amidst suchwealth. I wanted them to consider theaggression inherent in achieving this affluenceat the expense of the rest of the world’spoverty. Wasn’t it the very fact of our living inwealthy societies that made each of us in somesense a perpetrator of suffering? This is one ofthe points I tried to get across with my filmHibakusha at the End of the World.

H: Hibakusha was a film that took up theinjustice of Global North versus Global South.

K: You’re right it was, of people being trampledunderfoot from deep in the past until far in thefuture, and as a structural problem, rather thanmere coincidence.

H: Exactly. Within an unjust and asymmetricalworld structure.

K: Asymmetry. It’s such an important concept.When 120-odd people are killed in Paris there’snot a single world leader or “developed

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country” media outlet that doesn’t call it a“huge tragedy.” But when 600,000 Iraqichildren fall victim to American and NATObombs, or are sacrificed to civil war, it nevermakes the news.5 This is the exorbitanta s y m m e t r y o f o u r w o r l d . W i t h o u tunderstanding this distortion it’s alsoimpossible to understand where terrorismcomes from, and why it proliferates.

H: I couldn’t agree more.

K: That’s why I think it’s crucial for us torealize that if we’re all being used as leverageto squeeze the Global South, we can alsoremove our personal weight from thatequation, one by one, and counter thedistortion by standing against it. It’s notunrelated to the warped relationality betweenFukushima and Tokyo, between the cities andthe provinces.

H: Being committed to theorizing thisrelationality or structure is really important, Iagree. It’s what your film Hibakusha succeedsin doing so well.

K: I’m so glad you think so.

Information Control: The State and theNuclear Industry

H: Hibakusha at the End of the World showshow tightly the nuclear energy industries inJapan, the U.S. and the former Soviet Unioncontrolled information about nuclear risk.Watching the film we feel that an entire systemof concealment has developed to obscure therealities of exposure after a nuclear accident.

K: Right, and in this sense Chernobylrepresents a total failure of the system. Thataccident harmed a wide area, and the idea thatradiation exposure is terrifying was fairlywidely disseminated across the affected area.So from the perspective of international

nuclear power advocates, Chernobyl wascompletely mishandled.

There was a great deal of work done on therealities of exposure, and it became clear notonly that children would be born withcongenital defects, but also that the effects ofradiation would be passed on to the nextgeneration. This created a situation in which,all around the world, just the word “Chernobyl”immediately conjured a nuclear accident.Regretting this, nuclear advocates beganstepping up their efforts to control information.

H: This needs to be seen as something thathappened on a global scale, doesn’t it, throughoffices like the IAEA.

K: Exactly. What’s more, the IAEA has directties to Japan, in the sense that those whopromote nuclear energy in Japan are intimatelyconnected to key players in the IAEA. After all,Japan’s position within the global nuclearenergy industry is increasingly central.

With Toshiba purchasing a controlling share ofWestinghouse, and Mitsubishi investing heavilyin Areva, it's not an overstatement to say thatJapan is assuming a leadership role in theglobal nuclear industry.6 Areva ran up a hugedeficit on the construction of the Olkiluotoplant in Finland, and just when it was facingfiscal crisis Mitsubishi Heavy Industriesstepped in.7

As you’re well aware, however, we mustn’tforget that the roots of controlling informationabout nuclear exposure and the risks of nuclearenergy stretch all the way back to policiesdeveloped at the time of the first nuclearbombs. There’s historical continuity here.Directly after the bombing of Hiroshima andNagasaki, or even before that, during theprocess of developing the technology, theminimization of exposure and the concealmentof harm were already taking place on a grandscale.

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H: Do you think it’s accurate to view whathappened with 3.11 as an instance of thislarger operation of information control?Immediately after the triple-meltdowns theJapanese government dispatched “governmentscholars” (goyō gakusha) like YamashitaShun’ichi to give public lectures at dozens ofplaces in Fukushima, and these lectures werecovered with zero criticism by television, radioand newspaper companies that disgorged theircontents without changing a single word.

K: Yes, that’s how I view it. Of course,Yamashita Shun’ichi is a unique character whoplayed a specific role. Because he is aChernobyl specialist there were very fewpeople who could rebut his arguments. It washe after all who had taken the initiative top r o d u c e t h e m o s t c o m p r e h e n s i v eepidemiological survey after Chernobyl. True,the Y500,000,000 ($4.5M) he spent on thesurvey came from the Sasakawa Foundation,but still . . .8

The government and TEPCO were well awareof this. Because Yamashita was president of theJapan Thyroid Association, in dispatching himthey were forming a precise battle formation,with someone who seemed unbeatable out infront. As for the media simply disgorgingeverything he said, that set up the basicstructure of information dissemination thatstarted right after the Fukushima nuclearaccident and continues to this day.

H: Still, a scholar like Mr. Yamashita -- surelyh e k n o w s w h a t h e ’ s d o i n g w h e n h emanufactures and disseminates supportingevidence for the safety myth? Don’t you thinkhe’s aware that he is concealing the truth?

K: Yes I think he is definitely aware. But I thinkhe and all the other “government scholars”have bought into the government and nuclearindustry’s logic of collateral damage. This ishow I read his notorious statement “I am aJapanese. I will honor what the Japanese nationhas decided.”9 He’s tacitly acknowledging that

nuclear contamination and radiation exposurewill be explained away as unfortunate butancillary events. It’s the reasoning that this isthe most appropriate way to avoid theescalation of fear toward radiation, and toavoid the extensive damage of social panic andcommunity destruction that would be caused bymandatory evacuations.

H: So they deal with the accident as anunavoidable ancillary event caused by chancerather than as a structural problem, ratherthan as a case of criminal negligence resultingin death and carrying criminal repercussions.In turn, this generates even bigger profits andshores up the system that drives the wholeoperation. A certain number of people have tosacrifice themselves in order not only forprofits to continue to flow, but also for thenation not to descend into chaos. This is thelogic.

K: Right, and we can see how it lines upperfectly with the American logic we’ve heardrepeated since 1945, that dropping atomicbombs and killing 200,000 people wasregrettable, but far better than the deaths of1,000,000 Americans. In other words, the deadof Hiroshima and Nagasaki were sad butineluctable sacrifices necessary to end the war.They get justified as collateral damage.

H: This is where I’ve come to see an analogybetween the way war works and the waynuclear power works. It’s true as well for themodern state. The logic that a certain amountof sacrifice – it differs whether we’re talkingabout democracy or dictatorship – is necessaryto industrial and political prosperity hasalready been made immanent from the start. Inother words, this sort of structure in which it’spossible to force the country’s citizens tosacrifice themselves when necessary is alwaysoperating as an essential precondition to thecreation and maintenance of so-called“prosperity” and “sovereignty.” In English wecall it the logic of the “national sacrifice zone,”

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which functions even within democraticsocieties. Those who are sacrificed tend tocome from the ranks of the socioeconomicallyand racially disempowered. What both war andnuclear power keep at the ready is theevocation of a “state of exception,” in which thelaw will be temporarily suspended and civilrights will not be protected. This is how it’spossible for the nuclear power industry tocause a catastrophic accident and never facecriminal charges, and for the government toask people to die on behalf of the countrywithout anyone talking about murder.10 Quitethe contrary, the dead and dying are glorifiedas heroes of the state. Your film Hibakusha atthe End of the World does a magnificent job ofshowing how this sort of violent structure isexpanding on a global scale.

K: That’s right. I could never have said it quiteso theoretically, but it’s precisely what I have inmind as I make my films. When you’ve got agroup of people who know full well thepersistent risks of nuclear energy but fall underits spell and become advocates nonetheless,there’s got to be some sort of righteous pretextor moral obligation for them to rally around.You come to feel it especially keenly whenyou’re involved in the process of making adocumentary film.

H: What I sensed in the scenes of Hanford,Washington from your Hibakusha film was therighteous pretext “This is how we defeated theSoviets;” “This is how we protected the FreeWorld.”

Another element in the Hanford scenes is theattitude of emphasizing the invincibility ofscientific knowledge, of declaring ad infinitumthat if one looks at the data scientifically, thelikelihood of actual harm to bodies and healthis extremely low. Meanwhile lots of theresidents are dying of cancer.

K: It’s because they can’t see the cause andeffect relationship; because they’re able tomake themselves not see it. The structure of

discrimination you mentioned earlier figures inhere as well, toward those who are beingsacrificed.

H: Well, it’s too bad for those folks, but if wehadn’t done it we wouldn’t have been able toprotect America and protect the whole world.That’s the rationale – that a certain amount ofsacrifice is unavoidable. And so we see how thestate of affairs that gives rise to nationalpolicies (kokusaku) is premised on thepossibility of sacrificing human rights, ofignoring them. And when it comes to thenuclear energy industry, military power andindustrial profits are intimately connected. It’sthe story of industry profiting handsomelywhen the state maintains its nuclear weaponrycapacity.

K: That’s certainly a valid point; in Japan theysay an already-built plant with a generatingcapacity of one million kilowatts makesY100,000,000 ($904,000) a day. But isn’t thenuclear industry in the U.S. in decline? Becausethe risks are too high not a single plant isunder construction,11 and in Europe as welleveryone is keenly aware of Areva’s failure[with the Olkiluoto plant in Finland].

True, places that have grown rich selling oillike Dubai and Saudi Arabia are hurrying tobuild nuclear power plants before they exhausttheir fossil fuel resources. It makes sense,given that they only have about 40 years left.Probably less than 40 years, truth be told. Buteventually they’ll spend more decommissioningthese plants [than they ever made generatingelectricity with them].12

And there’s also the whole issue of nuclearreprocessing, which American scientists arenow saying is a dead end. What [both nuclearreprocessing and] decommissioned nuclearwarheads produce is plutonium. But the UnitedStates has no need for plutonium fromreprocessing plants because it still has asurplus of decommissioned nuclear bombs.Using this surplus for power won’t work either.

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When we think of current plans to develop areactor that could burn plutonium as fuel, andthe amount of time these plans have been inthe works, what we see worldwide is nothingbut failure. Japan is the perfect object lessonhere, with the Monju plant leaving its negativelegacy of having sat completely idle sincecausing an explosion [in 1995].13 Globally,reprocessing is over.

Nevertheless, where energy policy is concernedJapan remains as fixated [on nuclear] as ever,even though globally the fundamental thinking,the philosophy itself, has been changing. Ofcourse the reason people dig in their heels isbecause they’ve been able to set up [nuclearpower] as a profit-making enterprise. But in thegrand scheme of things it loses money.

H: Still, it’s been contrived to earn money for acertain segment of its proponents?

K: Right, because that’s the sort of systemthat’s been set up. In other words, of Japan’sroughly Y600 billion ($5.3 billion) annualEnergy Development Budget, roughly 60 or 70percent goes to nuclear, and this has been truefor over thirty years.

So for example, in the case of the Kaminosekiplant which I document in Ashes to Honey, theChugoku Electric Company spent Y450 billion($4 billion), but when you consider that overseveral years the Energy Development Budget(enerugii kaihatsu yosan) incentivized themwith annual sums of Y100 billion ($887 million)and Y50 billion ($443 million), it’s clear theywere able to build it for next to nothing. Thenin addition they’re allowed to take a 3.8percent profit on capital expenditures, whichthey tack directly onto peoples’ electricity bills.That’s the system we have.

Given that there’s also something called aSubsidy for Electricity Generating Locations(dengen ritchi kōfukin) paid directly from thetax base, we can see that electric companies,far from exposing themselves to risk, have

actually set up a system for nuclear power thatguarantees they make money hand over fist.The more plants they build, the more theyprofit. This is the single biggest reason nuclearpower expanded at a breakneck speed in Japan.

H: And it is also how depopulated areas cameto hear so much about how nuclear powerwould fill town and village coffers, and provideplenty of employment. “Japan is poor in naturalresources so relying on nuclear is the onlyway!”

K: Exactly. “It’s because electricity is essentialto Japan’s trade and industry.” “It’s becausenuclear is the lynchpin to economic growth.”This is what we are told, and yet Japanexperienced no energy shortages when everyplant shut down after 3.11. So why all the talkabout restarts? In a country with so manyearthquakes? We’ve gotten by just fine for thepast 695 days without a single reactor inoperation (laughter).

H: Seen in an international frame, the Japanesestandard of living even without nuclear powerhas been excessively extravagant. The highlevel of energy consumption has continuedunabated.

K: I agree: excessively extravagant. Imentioned earlier the fixed assumption thatarose from within the dire poverty of life rightafter WWII, namely that life is only as affluentas the amount of energy you consume. Thisassumption is still alive and well.

The same assumption helps us understand howit’s possible, despite 695 days without nuclear-generated electricity during which there wereno restrictions and no brownouts, and duringwhich we maintained extremely high levels ofenergy consumption by international standards,for government officials, government scholars,and business leaders to reproach the anti-nuclear contingent by saying “It’s not like wecan just return to the Edo Period!” The numberof people who say this is staggering.

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So we see how difficult it will be to change thecollective consciousness. That’s how deeply andindelibly [the assumption that affluence equalsenergy consumption] gets imprinted ontopeoples’ consciousness, time after time.

H: You’ve given us a vivid picture of the waynuclear policy and economic growth getimprinted, or shall we say naturalized, in thecollective consciousness, and how the Japanesemedia has largely failed to problematize this.What is your view of how the major mediaoutlets responded to this most recent accidentat Fukushima? What do you make of how itcontinues to be handled in the press?

K: The only truly serious coverage has been inthe Tokyo shinbun. And maybe a little inChūnichi shinbun. Beyond that I feel like thepress is just not covering it. Of course to somedegree they can’t get away with not reportingthe facts. “Yes, reactor one exploded;” “Yes,reactor three blew up.” That’s about the extentof it. But beyond that they offer no investigativereporting, for instance, on the state of nuclearcontamination in the environment, or what isplanned for the melted-down fuel inside thereactors, and the spent fuel still stored on-site.

Oh yes, the Asahi Shinbun has been running its“Prometheus’ Trap” series.14 That’s quite good.But the problem is that Japanese people justgot so tired of Fukushima. After the accident,information that had never been disseminatedsuddenly came gushing forward as if a dam hadbroken. People felt completely saturated,hearing nothing but that day after day. Past acertain point people couldn’t bring themselvesto tune in and consume it. In addition, duringthose first six months the news becameobsolete incredibly quickly.

H: It’s a small step from becoming obsolete tobeing forgotten entirely.

K: “Enough is enough!” That’s generally howpeople felt. But I don’t think that exoneratesthe media from accurately covering how much

the government is minimizing the accident anddodging its aid responsibilities, or how eachsuccessive policy strays from its statedintention.

Television coverage was the worst. Televisionstations stopped talking about Fukushimasooner than any other media outlet. It’s thesame with their coverage today: nothing, zero.It’s because the biggest sponsor for most ofthem was TEPCO.

In 2011 I received a prize for something orother and at the party there were a lot ofproducers from local commercial broadcastingstations saying I should appear on theirprograms. When I replied I would if it werefeasible they responded, “Oh it’s fine now!Because TEPCO is no longer sponsoring us . . .”

But in the end they never once reached out tome. The people who come to me for materialare all from French newspapers and TV, or theAustralian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), orthe BBC. Places like that. The Japanese medianever come. Never.

3.11 happened just as I was taking my filmAshes to Honey on the road for its premiere.T h e J a p a n e s e m e d i a c o v e r e d t h i scorrespondence only reluctantly. It’s hard notto conclude that they simply don’t comprehendthe seriousness of the nuclear accident.

When you ask journalists from the local newsoutlets l ike the Fukushima Minyū andFukushima Minpō newspapers or theFukushima Hōsō television station why theydidn’t respond immediately to the nuclearexplosions by reporting that this wasdangerous for the people of the prefecture, thatthey should evacuate, that according toJapanese law a certain level of radiationdesignated a place an uninhabitable nuclearregulation zone, they claim it was because theydidn’t know; because they themselves werewithout the proper knowledge. Instead, theywaited to see what the government would say

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and simply broadcast that, with no analysis orinterpretation.

During the postwar period, as the “PeacefulUses of Nuclear Energy” slogan gainedstrength, it was taboo for the media to talkabout risks in the future or environmentaldamage in the present. So local reportersdeemed it futile to spend energy investigatingand writing about these topics. Either theyknew their findings would never see the light ofday and therefore omitted them, or they heldback from doing the reporting in the first place.As a result no one accumulated this knowledgeand no one handed it down, so even when itseemed something might be happening therewas no interest and no attempt to understand.

E x e r c i s e s i n D e m o c r a c y : W h a tDocumentary Film Can Accomplish

H: What was it that first made you think youwould like to make documentaries aboutnuclear problems and nuclear exposure?

K: It was definitely my trip to Iraq. Manychildren were exposed to radiation as a resultof the US invasion of Iraq and its use ofdepleted uranium bullets [rekka urandan].15 Iwas moved by the fact that once a body isexposed, it can never completely recover. I’vesince learned from the case of Belarus that it’spossible to reduce the effects of radiationexposure to some degree through recuperativecare outside the contaminated zone. But in thecases of both Iraq and Chernobyl of course itwas not possible for the entire population tomove, and in any case a certain amount ofharm is unavoidable.

As I myself resolved to learn as much as I couldabout these issues I came to discern variouselements, one by one. I needed for instance totrace the history of nuclear energy, to speakwith people in the “nuclear village,” and tounderstand how the “nuclear fuel cycle”

works.16 I also needed to study what happens tothe human body when it is exposed to ionizingradiation.17 Although of course I consulted theliterature on the topic, there was a lot I couldonly learn in the field, at the sites I wasstudying.

H: Your experience making Hibakusha at theEnd of the World seems to have influenced thecontent of the film on many levels.

K: It’s true it did, because that was the verybeginning for me. First I had to consider, inboth the American and the Japanese contexts,who had first made nuclear bombs and nuclearweapons, and for what purpose, with whatresults. Then I also needed to consider theharm being done by depleted uranium bulletsused in modern warfare during the Iraq War:about low-dose radiation and chronic exposure.When I was making Hibakusha at the End ofthe World no one in the mainstream was askingthese sorts of questions. They were consideredminor.

H: I see. I’ve always admired the way you wereable to connect those three places – America,Japan, and Iraq – both spatially and temporally.It’s a really original approach, and beautifullyexecuted. Usually documentary filmmakerstrain their sights on just one place. Then theyisolate the problem. But you illustrate soeffectively how, structurally, the nuclearproblem is always a global problem, and hasbeen from the beginning.

K: I tried to draw both axes into the film – boththe depth of vertical time as it relates to theproblem of the nuclear, and the breadth orhorizontality of space.

H: It comes across wonderfully clearly. Westart in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and move toHanford in the United States, then to Iraq. Sowe get spatial continuity and also temporalexpansion at the same time.

K: When we talk about time it’s important to

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focus on the temporal process by whichradiation exposure manifests in the individualbodies of those who experienced the bombings.That time is internal to each hibakusha – thetime it takes for the radioactive material toestablish itself in the body, and for the body tobegin changing in response. Because this issomething that requires the passage of time, Iwanted to trace the existence of what we mightcall the life that lives that interval: humanexistence, flesh-and-blood existence.

H: I think I know what you mean. Dr. Hida is agreat example.18 Dr. Hida Shunsuke definitelyembodies that interval.

K: Exactly.

H: He’s both a first-person narrator of theHiroshima bombing, and a medical doctor whograppled with addressing its effects his entirelife.

K: Precisely. And what’s really marvelous abouthim is that he never lords his status as ascientist over his patients. Instead he giveseach one of them his intimate attention, askinghow he can support not their illness but theirlife. This is what I find incredibly human abouthim – that as a doctor he takes this approach.

H: There were doctors who responded like thisin Iraq as well.

K: Yes there were. Dr. Jawad. Jawad Al-Ali.

H: He once said that the tragedy of watchingchildren succumb to cancer one after anothermade him so sad he feared his own heart wouldgive out.19

K: And I would say that, among the Iraqi peopleI’ve met, the type of deep humanity that Dr.Jawad exemplifies is not at all rare. Islam isperceived negatively in the West today, butwhat does it mean to turn toward God fivetimes a day and pray? Isn’t it also turningtoward oneself to reflect? We’re talking about a

people who set aside time morning, noon andnight, five times, to face themselves and faceGod.

When I first set out for Iraq I did not have apositive image of Islam, but I was impressed bythis introspective quality that Muslims have.And their humor! I found them to have a keensense of compassion.

H: Yes, this comes out quite naturally in thedocumentary.

K: I think so, too. When I left for Iraq the imageof that country constructed by the Japanesemedia was a negative stereotype, personifiedalmost entirely by Saddam Hussein, of abelligerent people: dictatorial, violent, andwarmongering. It was discriminatory.

It makes sense when you consider the relationsbetween the American media and the Japanesemedia on this point. Like a Russian doll, theAmerican version of Iraq opened to a Japaneseversion of Iraq inside, exactly the same, as ifJapanese reporters had no ability to refashionthe stereotype on their own.

So when I took the clear position that theseIraqi people whom it was supposed to beobvious deserved bombing were actually just ashuman as we are, and have pride, and humanrights, and are not aggressors but victims –when I took this position it became difficult forNHK to accept my work. Because originally Ihad gone to Iraq on a shoot for NHK (laughter)!You’re never supposed to give the “enemy” ahuman face. A stereotype is an ideologicaldevice for dehumanization.

H: They felt uneasy about your shattering thestereotype that they had helped create.

K: Precisely. Yes. There’s an element of themass media that only functions to strengthenstereotypes – that may just be its destiny. Ofcourse this is not true of all mass media. On thecontrary, I myself try to break stereotypes, to

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grasp a more multi-faceted, three-dimensionalreality.

H: This is an objective you’ve said you firstencountered through the media activist groupPaper Tiger during a stay in New York, isn’tit?20 Participating in that group and developingthis kind of thinking was a formativeexperience?

K: That’s right. Before I went to New York Iwas already working in Japan making films andtelevision programming. But like most peoplein those fields I wasn’t much interested inquestions of why and for whom we make ourworks. My priorities as a filmmaker and as atelevision director were how to makesuccessful, high quality images. I wanted toexpress my individuality, and I cared about howcritics responded. The question of for whom wemake our works was unimportant because itwas obvious: I make works for myself! But Icame to realize that media has a crucialadditional role to play.

Because I worked more in fi lm than intelevision I had convinced myself that authorialstyle was paramount. But when I startedworking with Paper Tiger in New York almostevery single person in this citizen-directors’g r o u p w a s a m i n o r i t y . T h e r e w e r eundocumented filmmakers from Mexico andblack filmmakers with AIDS. Hispanic workerfilmmakers. And of course there were alsomiddle class white people, but what theywanted to make films about were radicalchanges within their dai ly l ives, l ikeimplementing a Canadian-style single-payernational health insurance in the US.Mainstream American media couldn’t musterany enthusiasm whatsoever for such topics. Itwas only through Paper Tiger that I was able todiscern this contrast. And so I resolved to makefilms at Paper Tiger – to make our own mediaas a counter-culture to the existing mediaculture.

Of course the people who wanted to produce

this sort of alternative media had onlyrudimentary skills – many had never picked upa camera before. What they did have was visionand conviction. “This is what we want!” “This iswhat we need!” In contrast, I had skills. I beganto wonder what would happen if I used themfor someone else -- for their cause rather thanmine. This was a real stroke of luck for me.

H: They had an internal vision that they wantedto express, and you were able to back it up notwith your authorial style but with a sharedsense of political commitment.

K: That’s right; we wanted to address our ownproblems, and to solve them through media. Wedefinitely had political commitment. But westruggled because we didn’t know how to put afilm together. We also had no budget. Still, Ihad skills. And the experience helped meappreciate, not that I should use them inAmerica, but that I should take them back toJapan, This is what I had in mind when Ireturned to Japan in 1995.

H: What kind of issues did you want to address?Did you have a clear vision of the perspectiveyou wanted to bring to bear on certain issues inJapan?

K: I was in a bit of a daze for a while after Ireturned, and then the Great HanshinEarthquake struck. Because I had no job andlots of free time I went to Kobe as a volunteer,and all of Japan’s problems came tumblingdown on me. They were problems of theJapanese family, of the sort that had beeninvisible while peoples’ houses still stood, butthat were exposed when the walls fell and thefamilies were driven out.

My job was to drive to Kobe and deliver specialmeals provided by a sponsoring group in Tokyofor children with food allergies who were livingin cardboard evacuation shelters within schoolgyms. It was when I visited the families of thesechildren with allergies that I sensed there wassomething terribly wrong. It wasn’t just gender

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problems between the parents, or the extremeenvironment in which the children were placed,or administrative problems, or problems ofmedical treatment and PTSD. It was all of themtogether. This was the place from which Ibegan.

H: So, completely by chance, the sameKamanaka Hitomi who in New York had beendrawn into a political consciousness andacquired a new way of making films foundherself face to face with the Great HanshinEarthquake.

K: Yes it was a real encounter! For me the actof filmmaking always is. I never set outconceptually with the idea to make this or thatkind of work. Instead I encounter it on site, andit either draws me in or it doesn’t. I feel it or Idon’t. I don’t think metaphysically. I just startdigging and that sets the filmmaking process inmotion.

H: Still, when we consider the films you startedto make at that time, there’s a certaincontinuity isn’t there? I’m not sure whether tocall it continuity or a sustained politicalsensibility, but it’s at work in all of them.

K: Yes, well, for instance it was in the processof making Hibakusha that I came to see whatmy next film would address. After all, theproblem of the nuclear is quite deep, and it isintertwined with our modern lives in astaggering number of ways. So it was naturalthat in the midst of making Hibakusha thetheme of my subsequent film RokkashoRhapsody, namely, the current state of thenuclear industry in Japan, would come intoview.

I like to exhibit my work in a way no one elsedoes, by attending the screenings in person,gett ing feedback from the audienceimmediately afterward, and using my camera tomake a record when new social movementsarise, like I did when I took Rokkasho Rhapsodyon the road. That was when what was needed

was the theme of Ashes to come into view: not“What should we do about nuclear energy?” but“What should we do about the future of energywrit large?” One of the most importantquestions of this film is how to offer positivesolutions.

Rokkasho Village

Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant

Anti-Rokkasho Demonstration in Tokyo

H: Watching Ashes to Honey I was struck bythe way a glimmer of hope keeps appearingand disappearing, even while there is noexplicit vision of exactly what should be done inthe future. The film suggests a certain sense ofpossibility – that if we only make up our minds,something called community can form itselffrom the bottom up, while we’re in the processof devising new forms of renewable energy andtaking various measures.

K: In Japan, even if people know this phrase“from the bottom up” (botomu appu), they’veusually never created that kind of community.But that’s not true of Sweden. We can reallylearn a lot from observing what happens there,for instance, when a cattle farmer realizes hecan achieve energy self-sufficiency usingmethane gas from his herd’s manure, and when

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local people invest in his project.

It’s a way of thinking in the direction of localautonomy, in the direction of being able to dothings independently without relying on thenational government. Compared to countriessuch as Sweden, Japan is weak at this. I madeAshes to Honey in 2010, in which I addressedthe issue of local autonomy, but the theme isstill very much on my mind because localautonomy is fundamental to democracy.Especially when faced with “national this” and“the Abe administration’s that,” I think beingable to decide how to solve problems at a locallevel – the problems we face in the placeswhere we live, and where we’ve put down roots– is crucial to cultivating a democratic society.

That’s why I don’t spend much time at weeklyprotests in front of the Prime Minister’s Office.If I’m always making the rounds with my filmsbetween the far corners of Hokkaido, remoteplaces in Tohoku, Shiga Prefecture, ShimanePrefecture, and Kyushu, it’s because I’ve cometo believe that the center has no hope ofchanging if these other places don’t change.

What we see in Sweden and in the places Ifilmed for Ashes to Honey are not the actions ofa centralized state but rather humble struggleson the part of people living in small towns andvillages to bring about, on the strength of theirown actions, a wholesale transformation in theway energy is produced and used. In point offact the people of Iwaishima are up againstcentralized nuclear energy policies that robthem of their right to self-determination.Although whether or not to build a nuclearpower plant is something that people who livethere should be able to decide by themselves,they’re left with no say in the matterwhatsoever. So it’s in places like this that thechange must begin.

Iwaishima, the focal point of Ashes toHoney

Anti-Iwaishima/Setouchi Power PlantProtest in Tokyo. Koide Hiroaki21 is secondfrom left.

H: When we think about nuclear energy policyit’s really this part that feels most violent. All atonce the logic of the state and the logic ofcapital arrive on the scene and people arerobbed of their communities, their land, theirway of life: everything is gutted. Meanwhilelocal people are bought off. “What’s tocomplain about? Haven’t you got more moneynow than you’ve ever seen in your lives?” Butwhat it means to live, to experience life’shappiness, is not a matter of purchasing poweror consumer confidence. With the influx of cashcomes the gradual destruction of the quality offood, water and air -- of the condition of nothaving to worry about their safety -- and alsothe pleasure of work, the pleasure ofencountering nature. These are lost togetherwith the community. Your films make us feelthis especially keenly; they make us feel yourconviction that democracy is fundamentally amatter of building community in the placewhere you l ive, by your own wi l l anddetermination, according to your own vision.

K: That’s exactly right. If you think aboutFukushima’s problems past and present, theyall stem from the uprooting and destruction ofautonomy. It ’s clear i f you look at myscreenings by region. My films are onlyscreened if an independent group brings themto town, so they only find an audience wheninvited by local people.22 The number of timesthey’ve been screened in Fukushima Prefecture

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is extremely low.

H: I see. Does this point to an absence of civicgroups?

K: Yes it does. Civic groups exist but they’reweak, and few and far between. In comparison,someplace like Nagano Prefecture has quite alot. There is a great variety of groups, and theirregional initiatives are lively. The sense ofautonomy is strong. It makes a huge difference.

When the accident at Fukushima occurred, if avariety of civic groups had already existed Ithink they would have mobilized right away.Especially in the dissemination of information.We would have seen an immediate attemptfrom within the region to share facts andcommunicate locally.

One advantage of diverse and active civicgroups is the accumulation of knowledge andexperience around collective action. Peopleknow how to work together toward a singlegoal even with those with whom they disagree.In Fukushima it seems this was lacking. Andwhile there were any number of complicatedcontributing factors -- historical, political,social and economic – those same factors werewhat predisposed Fukushima to its dependenceon nuclear policies in the first place. So whilewe saw many civic groups take shape after3.11, we also saw them quickly splinter anddissolve. It was the same kind of splinteringand dissolution as when the plants wereconstructed. Buying up farmers’ land to buildthe reactors, the government and TEPCO usedmoney to eradicate their way of life. Thecommunity was splintered into supporting andopposing factions, and only after these factionshad been set to battling each other did theauthorities make their move. It’s what’s called“nipping solidarity in the bud.” It’s a method ofdismantling solidarity, whether solidarity existsfrom the start or arises in opposition to nuclearconstruction. We saw it in Rokkasho. We saw itin Iwaishima. We saw it in Fukushima.

H: So what you’re saying is that on top of acomparatively weak tradition of civic groupsinvested in local autonomy, Fukushima had itsweakness doubled by the divisive policies rolledout by TEPCO and the government after theaccident. The disaster gave rise to a sort oftwice-enfeebled situation.

K: Yes that’s exactly my point. I’m a bigsupporter of Mutō Ruiko but I can’t help feelingshe’s up against quite a lot in Fukushima.23 Itwould really be disastrous for the movement inwhich she’s participating to become isolated.Because there are so many people throughoutthe country who want to support Ruiko-san, Ifeel confident that things will work out, but it’sharsh there inside Fukushima.

H: I was speaking with Mutō-san recently andshe too spoke of how “government scholars”wasted no time making their way to Fukushimaafter the accident to start spreading the safetymyth all over again. When these scholars saidthey knew Chernobyl and that Fukushima wasnothing in comparison, even people who hadbeen allies in the anti-nuclear movement, andwho had attended study groups, would applaudand exclaim their admiration, saying “What asplendid person.” Mutō-san said she hadwitnessed this moment of surrender time andtime again.

K: Well, isn’t it the same thing we saw atHanford, Washington? The local people listenedto the scientists’ explanations and quicklycapitulated. “Oh I see, so there’s nothing toworry about.” The main challenge withsolidarity is whether a community can maintainitself without falling into the traps of capitalismand power (division, bribery, safety myths).That’s why what my films attempt to discern isthe structure that sets the traps. The viewerquickly comes to recognize that he or she is notonly complicit with a

structure that requires sacrifice, but that thepolicies that sustain it will eventually bringabout the destruction of his or her own way of

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life as well. “I’m next.” That’s the point.

What’s crucial is that we learn to extricateourselves from positions of support. So it’s nota matter of ad-hominem attacks or forcing twoor three people to take responsibility, but ofgaining a comprehensive perspective on howthe problems presently unfolding are connectedand mutually determined: of seeing things froman objective, high-angle view. This is what Iwant my documentaries to accomplish – thebirth of a new consciousness; the feeling of anew self, out of alignment with the old. I call ita “chemical reaction of consciousness.”

H: When a local group self-screens your films, Iwonder if you would call it an exercise indemocracy. I’m asking in relation to the phraseyou just used, “a chemical reaction ofconsciousness.”

K: I would! It takes time, to be sure. After ascreening we never fail to make time fordiscussion. When you make a space forconversation people start speaking out, evengeneral audience members, and there’s acultivation of debate. For instance, at a post-screening discussion in one town a Fukushimaevacuee spoke up and said that in order to saveher three children she’d had to leave behindher husband, who refused to acknowledge thedangers of internal radiation. But evacuationrent subsidies had been cut off, and she’d neverreceived any support from her husband, so shewas wondering how she and her three childrencould get by. In the course of the discussion,this woman ended up declaring that she wasgoing to go to the local administration andpetition that her housing subsidy be extended.This is a woman who had never once in her lifedone anything remotely political. There are lotsof evacuees like her. When you talk to them youhear that they’re lower middle-class, income-wise. So at a screening to which, say, 100people come, you’re face to face with the factthat people like this are not getting any stateaid at all. Little by little, as the concrete details

of their lives become clear, the injustice ofpolicies toward refugees is vividly exposed,together with the criminal irresponsibility ofthe government.

Listening to the discussion, it’s impossible notto start thinking, “what am I myself going to doabout this?” At one screening there was a citycouncil member who told everyone that, havingbeen consulted that night by the evacuee, henow planned to go with her to petition theprefectural office, and that everyone elseshou ld come too . Tha t was how theconversation developed! By the end, two morepeople in the audience had declared that theywould also make the trip.

H: So by means of the screening they are ableto see how they are already connected to eachother, and how they should be connected. It’sthe spontaneous birth of activism. Having cometo see the film they come to this realizationand, exchanging conversation and ideas,discover a new relationality.

K: Exactly, they have a connection. And tomake this discovery, watching the film togetherand discussing it amongst themselves are reallyimportant.

What the mass media is saying and whatKamanaka’s film is saying are totally different.How to take this in? People feel unsettled. So tokeep them from going home like that, I askthem to wait a bit, to stay and discuss ittogether for 30 minutes or an hour, so that theycan return with something a little moreorganic.

I a l s o a lways a sk them to f i l l ou t aquestionnaire. This way, in addition towatching the film and the discussion, andlistening to my lecture, they don’t leave withoutmaking an effort to verbalize what theythemselves felt. The return rate is extremelyhigh. People write a lot. This way each personhas a chance to give feedback. It helps connectthem with the group that organized the

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screening as well. I work hard to facilitatethese connections.

H: When fellow humans are forced to speak toeach other face to face, and especially whenthey come from completely dif ferentbackgrounds, one for instance from a difficulteconomic situation, and another rich butperhaps ignorant of social realities – from thecoming together of such different perspectivesa diversity of voices is born, and what theyhave in common is the ability to achieve acertain kind of exercise in democracy.

K: Right. This is precisely what the Paper Tigerexcelled at: gathering extraordinarily diversepeople and giving them all a voice withoutaffixing any hierarchy to their opinions. EveryWednesday ten people would get together andone by one all ten would say what they thought.Because there was zero tolerance forinterruptions we had to listen to each person tothe end, and it took forever! The process wasso arduous that we all worried we would neverbe able to make a program or any kind ofcoherent work. But that was how we did makefilms, one by one, very slowly. Because thatwas how I came to understand democracy, I’mfully aware that democracy is a major hassle.

Hirano: Yes. Democracy happens in thepractice and operation of everyday culture,doesn’t it?

K: Shouting in front of the Prime Minister’soffice is incredibly important. But even moreimportant I think are the small acts that oneundertakes oneself in one’s own daily life.

H: To create a democratic society requires anenormous amount of time, and the task is neverfinished; if it is not sustained, it disappears.

K: Exactly, and it can’t be a matter of saying,“Oh, let’s do this or that.” There has got to be acollective conviction, “This is something wemust do.” It’s only from such conviction thatreal action begins, that everyone commits their

abilities, their brain power, their power to act.

Kamanaka’s citizen-led independent filmscreening.

H: Is i t that people have never giventhemselves license to exercise their potential?Or that great swaths of the population aren’teven aware they have it? If I think about ademocratic society in which, by some means oranother, each person is able to express whatthey feel and think in daily life, transmittingthis collectively, nurturing it, transforming itinto action.

K: You’re exactly right. The notion that I mightbe free, that it’s fine to feel, think and speakfreely, and live freely, so long as I takeresponsibility for my feelings, thoughts andspeech: this notion is very weak. It’s weak thatpeople are free to express themselves, and thatit’s only through self-expression that theyrealize their potential. The history of nuclearpower is built on that kind of political culture,and has had the unfortunate effect ofstrengthening it.

The Japanese education system restricts thatsort of potential.24 What I try to cultivate at mydocumentary screenings is exactly the sort ofspace that has never been nurtured within theJapanese education system, in which peopleknow they can speak freely because theythemselves are free, their choices are theirs,and no one will harm them if they give voice totheir thoughts and feelings. Quite the contrary,people will all listen, their opinion will berespected, and everyone else will be free tospeak as well.

H: Yes, and one more principle applies here:

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that we are equal to the end.

K: Exactly. Without hierarchy. Whether we arewomen or men, old or young, college-educatedor not. A level playing field. Completely flat. Ialways remind people that we are equal.

H: Do audiences feel a sense of emancipationafter participating in these discussions?

K: Yes, they go home extremely satisfied! Oneway or another they feel gratified, emboldened.

H: It’s empowering isn’t it?

K: Empowering! Exactly!

H: I can see how this would be transformative,given that the sense of empowerment, theexperience of potential, has been locked awayuntil then.

K: That’s right, because the powers that be areintent on keeping it confined; they want torestrict people’s open debate, and the sense ofconnection that arises. They want to keep“chemical reactions of consciousness” underlock and key. But when people in Fukushimaare worried about radiation and ask about theeffects of ionizing radiation, and possible harmto children, this shared emotion itself, thisoverwhelming worry itself is an injury. Forpeople to narrate their experience it is tonarrate a violence that has been done to them,and to protest.

Those in power want to control and confine thegrowth of a movement that arises when acollective consciousness is born from this sortof protest. “You’re crazy getting all worried likethat! It’s because you’re ignorant. If you go onsaying those things you’ll be conspiring withharmful rumors (fūhyō higai)! You’ll bes t a n d i n g o n t h e s i d e o f t h o s e w h odiscriminate!”25 This is how those in powerpreempt protest. This is how they root out anderadicate voices that speak out againstviolence.

H: One thing that’s always left a deepimpression on me in your films is the way theyintroduce different voices even-handedly, evenpro-nuclear and anti-nuclear voices. Inacademic language it’s called “polyphony,”from the music theory term for the sound ofmultiple voices. Independent melodies standout variously in time, intersecting, colliding,and reverberating, and the result is called“polyphonic.” Do you keep this sort of thing inmind when you are shooting a film?

I also want to ask a little bit about the viewingexperience, insofar as your audience is invitedto keep track of these various opposing,colliding and harmonizing voices and interpretwhat they’re saying. It strikes me that this getsto the heart of the democratic potential ofdocumentary cinema, because the viewingitself is an exercise in democracy.

K: The emphasis is less on my own messagethan on those of the people who appear in thefilm. This sort of space for discourse is rarelyopened within Japanese society. So my job is toprepare a receptacle and ask how it’s possibleactually to listen, to pay attention.

Opportunities to make diverse voices actuallyresonate are rare. But for instance, when Imade Rokkasho Rhapsody, even though thepro-nuclear and anti-nuclear factions almostnever had the occasion to exchange opinions inreal life, it was possible to make them talk toeach other within the reality constructed by myfilm.

H: Yes I think you wrote about this somewhere,that it was only after they had seen your filmthat the people of Rokkasho started talking toeach other.

K: I never make just a film; for me it’s crucial tofollow up and talk about “what happened afterthat.” So after Rokkasho Rhapsody I madesomething called Dispatches from Rokkasho1-4, and in the fourth dispatch we see peoplefrom the opposing sides begin a dialog.26 I think

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it’s really important that this takes place at thegrassroots level. My role is to be the facilitator.

H: Both in your work and in your way of life,you take dialog very seriously. So of course asyou outlined earlier in your filmmaking youalways begin by finding out what people wantto say, and make listening your point ofdeparture for coaxing out dialog. Then in turnyour audience members absorb the film andnegotiate its dialog internally, as we’vediscussed. And finally, after the screening, theyengage in a dialog with each other. So theemphasis is on the creation of bindingrelationships through dialog.

K: That’s right. It comes from my ownexperience of not necessarily getting my bestideas while lost in thought, alone. Whathappens far more often is that you get inspiredin conversation with someone completelydifferent from you, and discover within yourselfan unknown voice. Preaching to the choirdoesn’t work. It’s this dialog with differencethat’s lacking in Japanese society I think. Sowhen I teach young people I always emphasizethe importance of putting thoughts intolanguage. Maybe because they seem tocommunicate only through images, youngpeople try to get by on obfuscation, in a rush ofimprecise words. I want them to appreciate theimportance of working toward effectiveverbalization. I’m thinking here for instanceabout the way someone like Mutō Ruikocommunicates. Her words are precise andpowerful. I really admire them.

A Revolution of Feelings: The Politics ofEveryday Life

H: You’ve written about new citizens’movements in terms of “a revolution offeelings” and “a revolution underfoot.” Couldyou speak to this idea, of the potential inherentin new ways of doing things? I imagine it’s hardto separate this from the problem of

fi lmmaking.

Of course in the 1960s and 1970s politicalmovements were very organized; they had clearleaders , and fact ions , and a k ind o fcompunction to declare allegiance to right orleft – that’s how they worked. They were alwayspursuing questions of who was orthodox andwho was not. That sort of thing. But now we’veentered a completely different age, and itseems to me that this is reflected clearly bothin your method of filmmaking, the way youdistribute your films, and the way youparticipate in movements. I wonder if you couldsay a little bit about that potential, in terms of“a revolution of feeling” and “a revolutionunderfoot.”

K: Well it’s really about daily life, isn’t it? Truetransformation emerges from everyday living,not from historical principles or dogma. In thissense I have to say that, like Mutō Ruiko, Ibelieve in the sensitivity of women (“onna” to iukanjō). It’s because women are the ones wholive daily life most intimately. Whether they livein the city or the countryside, women cook,women do laundry, and women sort the trash.They think about what kind of trash they’reputting out; it’s inevitable that the person whotakes out the trash be conscious of its contents.And they think about food: what ingredientsshould be used? Are they safe? Are theyhealthy? Then there’s the choice of clothing,and whether or not it has been conceivedethically. It seems to me that the self whocoordinates all these aspects of daily lifeexperiences a kind of satisfaction: a kind ofhappiness.

Where the maintenance of daily life isconcerned, women are really the ones who do itclosest to the source. Of course one couldobject that statements like this presumenatural gender differences. But my point is thatin society as it actually exists, it’s undeniablethat it’s overwhelmingly women who do thiswork. Isn’t that why women are the ones who

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are best able to sustain political movementsthat derive from daily life? The discovery ofpotential within the act of living itself seemsold, but it’s quite new.

When I made “Ende ’ s Tes tament : AFundamental Interrogation of Money,” (1999)the reaction it elicited was unheard of for atelevision program.27 People were fascinatedwith the question, “what is money, actually?”They were eager to rethink the value systemthat has completely overtaken Japanesesociety, in which it’s possible to exchangeanything for money, and substitute money foranything. It became possible to consider theslightly utopian notion of a lifestyle that couldsustain daily existence in the absence ofmoney.

But concern for food – where it comes from,how far it travels – has really increased. Peopleare more and more aware that a wholesale shiftin the way we use energy can only begin from areconsideration of lifestyle, because “energy”means so much more than just electricity. Whatwe see increasing is the sensitivity that comesfrom examining, at every step, our own ways ofliving, eating, and moving.

H: Yes and this is what you mean by “arevolution of feelings,” isn’t it? A reexaminationof the priorities and values that sustain oureveryday lives?

K: Definitely. It’s important to appreciate thatliving in accordance with the same values asalways simply won’t work anymore. It takes agreat deal of time both to achieve thisappreciation with one’s brain, and to enact itwith one’s flesh.

But unless consciousness is reformed first it’simpossible to take control of our own way ofliving; we just remain sunk in a kind ofaddiction to “common sense.” People need toask themselves whether living as they are isreally okay. They need to wake up to the factthat to go on living in blind pursuit of an

excessive, material, money-oriented wealth iscomplicit both with the sacrifice of people andwith wholesale environmental destruction.What’s revolutionary is when this awakeningbegins to happen, person by person.

H: Is this what you mean when you talk about“the consciousness of the directly concerned”(tōjisha ishiki)?

K: Exactly. To the extent that we live in amodern society it’s impossible not to bear someresponsibility for harm, but what’s imperativeis to think actively about how to lessen theviolence. What we’re seeing now arecommunities of people who’ve realized this –people much younger than myself – bandingtogether and finding really marvelous ways,online especially, to share information abouthow they’re living. So even though it’s mypolicy not to call this “politics,” I see it as themost political possible choice.

Respite Care: Hope in Learning From EachOther

H: You’ve mentioned that your current focus issaving the maximum number of people fromradiation exposure. In the case of Little Voicesfrom Fukushima, you depict something called“respite care” (hoyō) as one possible protectivemeasure, one possibility for relief.

K: Yes, that’s right, I’ve been proposing it asone possible approach because I want to offerpositive solutions. Rather than simply railagainst the problem, the trick is to figure outhow we can come to grips with it, as humans:how we can solve it. And essential here is thewisdom of our predecessors.

After all, the mothers of Belarus are a group ofpeople who have been fighting this hand-to-hand battle for more than 30 years. Since thesame situation is unfolding in Fukushima,there’s a great deal we can learn from the

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struggles of these women.

H: Was it because you knew that respite carehad been set up by the people of Belarus andoffered consistently all these years that youfirst thought of connecting Belarus toFukushima, and thinking about the two placestogether?

K: Well, what’s happening now in Fukushima ischronic low-dose internal radiation. What Ireally wanted to know was how people hadcoped and continue to cope in the case ofChernobyl, when they went through the samething.

H: Watching your film I was struck by howeffective it was to compare Belarus andFukushima. What the mothers and children ofFukushima want to know most is how to lessenthe risks and effects of internal radiation.Especial ly for people under constantpsychological pressure, to pose an answer is toprovide a ray of hope amidst great darkness.

K: It’s true! And the point is that human beingsnever give up on learning from other humanbeings.

H: Your conviction in the experience andwisdom of other people is one of the greatstrengths of your documentary.

K: People learn so much from failure, from trialand error. It’s undeniable. That’s why simplynot being judgmental is a key tenet of mydocumentary-making. It’s so important not topass judgment on the other person. To behuman is to harbor contradictions, bydefinition. That’s why calmly acceptingcontradictions just as they come is the first steptoward discerning more essential problems,and how to solve them. We have to ask afterthe origin of the contradiction, and the statusof those who have no choice but to live insideit. When you’re caught up in the vortexyourself, you can’t understand. But if from thatsame position you’re able to observe others

objectively, to observe them as if you wereobserving yourself, you come to understandquite clearly. That’s the effect I always aim forwith my filmmaking.

In the absence of judgment, I can gather upvoices with equanimity and impartiality, nomatter what the position. Impartiality does usthe favor of presenting things extremely simply.

H: Extremely simply, yes, but we also sensethat the conversation is quite layered; that agreat deal lies behind it.

K: Exactly.

H: So is that what you mean by simplicity? Thesimple fact of recognizing this?

K: That’s right. The contradictions arise andpresent themselves as such.

H: You do a beautiful job of introducing a worldthat cannot be separated straightforwardly intogood and bad. Although you certainly have yourown opinions, you never impose them, or skipsuddenly to a conclusion. Instead you presentthe complexities of reality. As a result,audiences are reminded that although they arebearing up under the same dilemma, the samecontradictions, they’re also still living everydaylives. And the conversation opens onto whatchoices they can make.

K: Precisely. It’s crucial for people to makethese issues their own, and think about themdeeply. That’s really what I think is missingmost in Japanese society today. People aresimply in survival mode with their minds inneutral, having severed all ties to empathy. “Isimply can’t empathize with every last person,”they say. Put crudely, it’s an extremely lonelykind of society. The only kind of commonfeeling that gets supported is the warpedempathy of patriotism and nationalism. That’swhy I want to move forward with a firmconviction in the hope and empathy born ofbuilding relationships and learning from each

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other, through the moving image.

H: Thank you so much for talking today.

I would like to thank Kamanaka Hitomi for herfriendship and many stimulating conversationsover the past 3 years. My many thanks also goto Margherita Long for writing an excellentaccompanying essay for this interview andmaking the interview available in English.Norma Field and Mark Selden offered veryhelpful comments and suggestions as always. Iam grateful to them. Lastly I also want toextend my thanks to Akiko Anson who kindlytranscribed the interview, provided notes, andproofread the English version.

Related articles

”Save the Town”: Insolvable Dilemmas ofFukushima’s “Return Policy”. NamieMayor Baba Tamotsu interviewed byK a t s u y a H i r a n o .(https://apjjf.org/2018/03/Katsuya.html)Arai Takako, Disaster Poetry fromŌ f u n a t o(https://apjjf.org/2017/02/Arai.html), TheAsia-Pacific Journal, Vol 15, Issue 2 No 5,Jan 15, 2017

Robert Stolz, A Much Greater Event HasA l r e a d y T a k e n P l a c e(https://apjjf.org/2016/06/Stolz.html), TheAsia-Pacific Journal, Vol 14 Issue 6 No 1,Mar 15, 2016 David McNeill and Paul Jobin, Japan’s3.11 Triple Disaster: Introduction to aS p e c i a l I s s u e 特集 　 3 . 1 1(https://apjjf.org/2014/12/7/David-McNeill/4073/article.html) The Asia-PacificJournal Vol 12, Issue 7 No 1 Feb 16,2014 Oguma Eiji, Nobody Dies in a GhostTown: Path Dependence in Japan's 3.11D i s a s t e r a n d R e c o n s t r u c t i o n(https://apjjf.org/2013/11/44/Oguma-Eiji/4024/article.html), The Asia-PacificJournal, Vol 11, Issue 44, No 1 Nov 3,2013

Other interviews on the Fukushima nucleardisaster by Hirano can be found here(https://apjjf.org/admin/site_manage/details/apjjf.org/-Katsuya-HIRANO).

Notes are by the translator except wherenoted.

(https://apjjf.org/#_ednref2)

Katsuya Hirano is Associate Professor of History, UCLA. He is the author of The Politics ofDialogic Imagination: Power and Popular Culture in Early Modern Japan(https://www.amazon.com/dp/022606056X/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (U of Chicago Press). Hehas published numerous articles and book chapters on early modern Japan, the colonization ofHokkaidō, settler colonialism, cultural studies, and critical theory, including “The Politics ofColonial Translation: On the Narrative of the Ainu as a ‘Vanishing Ethnicity’”(http://apjjf.org/-Katsuya-HIRANO/3013/article.html). You can also find the series ofinterviews related to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in the Asia-Pacific Journal, a projectwhich Hirano started in 2013. He can be reached at hirano@history.ucla.edu.

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Margherita Long is Associate Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures, UC Irvine.She is the author of This Perversion Called Love: Reading Tanizaki, Feminist Theory andFreud (https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=15983) (Stanford). Her current project is a studyof post-3.11 public intellectuals, artists, and writers called On Being Worthy of the Event:Thinking Care, Affect and Origin after Fukushima. She has published a number of essays fromit, including “Ōe’s Post-Fukushima Activism: On Shame, Contempt and Care(https://www.academia.edu/35634304/Ecopolitics_and_Affect_Theory_in_Oes_Post-Fukushima_Activism_On_Shame_Contempt_and_Care).” She can be reached at margherita.long@uci.edu.

Akiko Anson is a freelance translator who lives in Iowa City, Iowa. Anson obtained a BAdegree in English literature from Gakushūin University in Tokyo, Japan and an MA degree inAsian Studies from the University of Iowa.

Notes1 This is Kamanaka Hitomi’s third co-authored piece for Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. Shediscusses her 2006 film Rokkasho Rhapsody in Kamanaka Hitomi, Tsuchimoto Noriaki andNorma Field, “Rokkasho, Minamata and Japan’s Future: Capturing Humanity on Film,” trans.Ann Saphir, The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 5, Issue 2 Dec 1, 2007(http://apjjf.org/2011/9/18/Norma-Field/3524/article.html). She discusses her 2011 film Ashesto Honey: Toward a Sustainable Future in Kamanaka Hitomi and Norma Field, “Complicityand Victimization: Director Kamanaka Hitomi’s Nuclear Warnings,” The Asia-Pacific Journal,Vol 9, Issue 18 No 4, May 2, 2011 (http://apjjf.org/2011/9/18/Norma-Field/3524/article.html). 2 The Chugoku Electric Power Company is one of ten government-regulated electriccompanies(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Japan#/media/File:Power_Grid_of_Japan.svg)supplying power over two separate grids. Three companies cover the Eastern Japan grid(Hokkaido Denryoku, Tohoku Denryoku, Tokyo Denryoku (TEPCO), and seven cover WesternJapan (Hokuriku, Chubu, Kansai, Chugoku, Shikoku, Kyushu and Okinawa Denryoku). In 2008Chugoku Electric was granted a license to begin landfill in the Seto Inland Sea to build tworeactors at a new Kaminoseki Plant. It made slow progress amidst the active local protestsKamanaka documents in Ashes to Honey. Operations were suspended in 2011 afterFukushima but in 2016 Yamaguchi Prefecture renewed its landfill license(https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/08/03/national/yamaguchi-prefecture-renews-license-new-nuclear-plant-project/) citing national energy policy.3 Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs English website(http://www.mofa.go.jp/fp/nsp/page1we_000083.html) states “On April 1, 2014, in accordancewith the NSS, the Government of Japan set out the Three Principles on Transfer of DefenseEquipment and Technology as a set of clear principles on the overseas transfer of defenseequipment and technology that fits the new security environment. The new Principlesreplaced the previous ‘Three Principles on Arms Exports and Their Related PolicyGuidelines.’”4 In 2004, in response to legislation that allowed the LDP to override opposition and send

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Japanese Self Defense Forces to fight in Iraq without a UN Mandate, a group called RibbonProject collaborated with the publisher Magazine House to produce a bilingual children’sbook(https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%88%A6%E4%BA%89%E3%81%AE%E3%81%A4%E3%81%8F%E3%82%8A%E3%81%8B%E3%81%9F-%E3%82%8A%E3%81%BC%E3%82%93%E3%83%BB%E3%81%B7%E3%82%8D%E3%81%98%E3%81%87%E3%81%8F%E3%81%A8/dp/4838715439#reader_4838715439) titled TheWay War Is Created (in Japanese) and What Happens Before War (in English). In 2015 ananimated version (http://noddin.jp/war/) was produced by a group of filmmakers and artistsconcerned that 3.11 and the Fukushima nuclear accident were also being used as a pretextfor militarization. Kamanaka sells the dvd for educational use on her web shop(http://shop.kamanaka.com/?pid=101432732) and it is also widely available online.5 This interview originally took place in October and December 2015. Here Kamanakareferences the Paris terror attacks of 13 November 2015. The figure “600,000” correspondsto the World Health Organization’s estimate for the number of children under fifteen whodied during seven years of the Iraq War. Kamanaka discusses this figure in the first chapter ofher book Hibakusha: Dokyumentarii eiga no genba kara [Hibakusha: From Ground Zero ofDocumentary Filmmaking] (Tokyo: Kageshobō, 2006), 23.6 The nuclear businesses of the American conglomerate Westinghouse were sold to BritishNuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) in 1999 after Westinghouse purchased the communicationscompany CBS in 1995, renamed itself CBS, and divested from non-broadcast operations.BNFL sold a 77% share in Westinghouse to Toshiba for $5.4B in 2006 at a time when theglobal market for nuclear power was expected to grow in China, India, the UAE and EasternEurope. In late 2015 when Hirano interviewed Kamanaka, Toshiba had already weathered anaccounting scandal centered in part on its failure to disclose Westinghouse losses(https://www.wsj.com/articles/toshiba-shares-dive-as-westinghouse-disclosure-spooks-investors-1447408239). But it had yet to suffer the full impact Kamanaka predicts, which theFinancial Times would call in February 2017 the “Downfall of Toshiba, a Nuclear IndustryTitan (https://www.ft.com/content/416a2c9c-f2d3-11e6-8758-6876151821a6)”. In earlyJanuary 2018, Toshiba sold Westinghouse(https://www.ft.com/content/74afda84-f174-11e7-b220-857e26d1aca4) to the Canadiancompany Brookfield for $4.6B. In contrast, Mitsubishi remains sanguine about its investmentin the French multinational group Areva, with which it began partnering in the early 1990s tosell nuclear fuel and established a joint venture in 2007 to make reactors(http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-MHI-agrees-to-take-20pc-stake-in-New-NP-0108174.html). Here Kamanaka references Mitsubishi’s decision to purchase more shares in Areva justas the German company Siemens was pulling out(https://web.archive.org/web/20121020234153/http:/www.hs.fi/english/article/Siemens+to+give+up+nuclear+joint+venture+with+Areva/1135243067027), in part over failures at theOlkiluoto NPP in Finland. Losses of almost $9B motivated Areva in 2017 to spin off its reactorunit as “Areva NP,” selling about 50%(https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Deals/Mitsubishi-Heavy-doubling-down-on-Areva-with-fresh-investment?page=1) to the French Government company Electricite de France (EDP) and 20%to Mitsubishi(http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/C-MHI-agrees-to-take-20pc-stake-in-New-NP-0108174.ht

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ml). According to the Nikkei Asian Review, Mitsubishi’s investment in Areva is now $621M(https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Deals/Mitsubishi-Heavy-doubling-down-on-Areva-with-fresh-investment?page=1).7 The Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olkiluoto_Nuclear_Power_Plant) in Finland had two reactorsbuilt in the 1970s and in 2005 commissioned Areva to build a third. Originally scheduled to becompleted in 2010, the project has gone 200% over budget and is still not finished.8 Wikipedia’s English entry (http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunichi_YamashitaShun’ich)on Yamashita is incomplete but indicates the controversy that surrounds him. He served aschair of the Japan Thyroid Association (http://www.japanthyroid.jp/en/information.html) afterco-authoring several (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673601069719)Chernobyl papers (http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0952-4746/26/2/001/meta) underthe auspices of the Sasakawa Foundation and in collaboration with the World HealthOrganization. The Sasakawa Foundation was funded by Sasakawa Ryōichi(https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1990/01/21/japans-daddy-war-bucks/14b48fca-4ad7-49ac-ab6d-6b4da8807bc7/?utm_term=.e22061e3a17d) (1889-1995), a controversialright-wing figure who made money in China and Manchuria during the Fifteen Years’ War andthrough a gambling empire in post-war Japan. It is worth noting also that many regard theUnited Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO), with which Yamashita collaborated, to becompromised by the close relationship with the International Atomic Energy Association(IAEA) mandated by a 1959 agreement(https://independentwho.org/en/who-and-aiea-aggreement/) in which the two agenciespromise always to act in “close collaboration.” The WHO rebutted this argument in a 2001statement (http://www.who.int/ionizing_radiation/pub_meet/statement-iaea/en/).9 Kamanaka is quoting a line from Yamashita’s 3 May 2011 public meeting in Nihonmatsu,Fukushima, in which he defends the claim that exposures of up to 100 millisieverts per yearare safe. One of the people who asks him a question is Jodo Shinshu priest Sasaki Michinori,who appears in both of Kamanaka’s post 3.11 documentaries. A transcript and video of the70-minute meeting is available from ourplanet-tv.org(http://www.ourplanet-tv.org/?q=node/1037).10 An important exception to the tendency for perpetrators of nuclear disasters to go legallyunpunished is the mandatory indictment (kyōsei kiso) seeking criminal penalties (keijibatsu)for three TEPCO executives currently making its way through Tokyo District Court. See here(https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/30/fukushima-nuclear-crisis-tepco-criminal-trial-japan).11 As 2016 ended, 99 U.S. reactors produce 19.5 percent of U.S. electricity. Many of thesereactors will reach the end of their current licenses and could close by mid-century. A numberof these reactors are at risk of near-term closure due to market competition and thepossibility that expensive major components will need replacement. Two reactors arecurrently under construction in the United States. Georgia plans to go ahead with two newreactors, just after South Carolina backed off. See an August 2017 article(https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/31/business/georgia-vogtle-nuclear-reactors.html) fromNew York Times as well as World Nuclear Association website(http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-t-z/usa-nuclear-power.aspx) updated February 2018 (KH)

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12 It should be noted that Saudi Arabia decided to build two large nuclear power reactors in2015. This is a significant scale-back from its original plan to build 16 reactors over next20-25 years at a cost of more than $80 billion. It projects that nuclear reactors provide 15% ofenergy by 2040, along with over 30% of solar capacity. This indicates that Saudi Arabia isinvesting more resources into the development of solar and other renewable energy thannuclear even though nuclear energy is by no means insignificant. (KH)13 In 1995 the Monju “fast breeder” nuclear plant in Fukui Prefecture suffered a sodium leakand explosion that was subsequently covered up. The close of the plant was announced(https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/09/21/national/japans-cabinet-hold-meeting-decide-fate-monju-reactor/) in September 2016.14 The series(https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%97%E3%83%AD%E3%83%A1%E3%83%86%E3%82%A6%E3%82%B9%E3%81%AE%E7%BD%A0) ran from October 2011 to March 2016 and hassince been edited into nine total volumes(http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?__mk_ja_JP=____&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=________) by Gakken Publishing.15 Weapons enhanced with depleted uranium (DU) were used by the US military(http://www.britannica.com/technology/depleted-uranium) for the first time in the PersianGulf War in 1991 to penetrate Iraqi tanks. They were subsequently used in Bosnia, Kosovo,Afghanistan and Iraq again in the Iraq War of 2003-2011. Widely reported healthconsequences led to requests for a global moratorium(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium) on their use.16 “Nuclear fuel cycle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fuel_cycle)” (kakunenryōsaikuru), refers to the multi-stage process by which uranium is mined, enriched and burned ina standard reactor, then either stored as spent fuel (nuclear waste) or reprocessed intomixed-oxide (MOX) fuel for use in a “fast-breeder” reactor. 17 Kamanaka gathered what she learned into a book co-authored with Dr. Hida Shuntarō. SeeNaibu hibaku no kyōi: genbaku kara rekka urandan made [The threat of internal radiation:From nuclear bombs to depleted uranium bullets] (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 2005).18 Hida Shuntarō (1917-2017) survived the atomic bombing in Hiroshima and devoted his lifeto caring for victims of radiation exposure. He became a mentor of Kamanaka after her returnfrom Iraq; she describes the process in the first chapter of Hibakusha: Dokyumentarii eiga nogenba kara. Dr. Hida plays major onscreen roles in her films Hibakusha at the End of theWorld (2003) and Living Through Internal Radiation (2012).19 Dr. Jawad Al-Ali of the Sadr Teaching Hospital in Basrah is quoted widely in global mediaaccounts of cancers caused by depleted uranium in Iraq. See for instance here(http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/may/26/iraqis-cant-turn-backs-on-deadly-legacy).20 Founded by media activist Dee Dee Hallock in New York City in 1981, Paper TigerTelevision (http://papertiger.org/about-us/history/) continues to pioneer alternativecommunity media and curate an extensive archive of independent and DIY programming.21 See Katsuya Hirano’s interview with Koide (http://www.apjjf.org/2016/06/Hirano.html).22 For the first few years after release, Kamanaka’s films are generally shown only throughjishu jōei or self-organized screenings. Her website (http://kamanaka.com/selfscreening/)

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gives detailed instructions on how to book, advertise, and stage events. For a detailed accountof their significance for community formation and social activism see Hideaki Fujiki,“Networking Citizens through Film Screenings: Cinema and Media in Post-3.11SocialMovements,” in Patrick W. Galbraith and Jason G. Karlin, eds., Media Convergence in Japan(Creative Commons, 2016).23 Mutō Ruiko is a long-time antinuclear activist based in Fukushima and a key figure in themovement to hold TEPCO executives and government officials criminally liable. Tounderstand the movement’s evolution from a group of “Complainants” to “Supporters of aCriminal Lawsuit,” see this video (https://shien-dan.org/category/profile/) at the Fukushimagenpatsu keiji soshō shiendan website. For Asia Pacific Journal pieces about Mutō, seeTomomi Yamaguchi’s essay (http://apjjf.org/2012/10/27/Tomomi-Yamaguchi/3784/article.html)from 2012, Katsuya Hirano’s interview (http://apjjf.org/2016/17/Hirano.html) from 2015, andNorma Field’s essay (http://apjjf.org/2016/17/Field.html) from 2016.24 Japan’s Basic Law of Education (kyōiku kihonhō) enacted in 1947 was amended under theleadership of Abe Shinzo in 2006 to de-emphasize equality and critical thinking andemphasize “patriotism.” For facts see Wikipedia(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_Law_of_Education). For analysis, see McNeill andLebowitz (http://apjjf.org/-David-McNeill/2468/article.html).25 “Those who discriminate” can refer to school bullies calling Fukushima evacuees“radioactive,” or people who practice marriage discrimination against prospective partnerswho have been exposed, or those who exert social pressure on parents who speak openlyabout thyroid cancer. Norma Field provides an overview and a wealth of citations in her essay“From Fukushima: To Despair Properly, to Find the Next Step(https://apjjf.org/2016/17/Field.html).” As Kamanaka notes here, however, the term“discrimination” (sabetsu) has also been appropriated by the pro-nuclear faction to silencethose who speak out about radiation’s effects, on the grounds that they too are practicingsabetsu.26 All four “dispatches” (tsūshin) take the form of documentaries. The four-disc set is availablefrom ILL and also from Kamanaka’s website (https://bunbunfilms.official.ec/items/5195666).27 Kamanaka’s program about the German fantasy and children’s book author Michael Ende(1929-1995) aired on NHK in May 1999. A book version(https://www.nhk-book.co.jp/detail/000000804962000.html) by Kamanaka’s productioncompany Group Gendai and NHK producer Kawamura Atsunori was published in 2000 byNHK Press. It remains in print in a bunko edition by Kodansha.