|
 Now, more than three years after the disaster, they remain
stuck in cramped emergency housing facing the reality they will
likely never go home, with Futaba set to become a storage site
for contaminated soil, a new documentary film shows.
"I think this is almost a human rights violation," said Atsushi
Funahashi, director of "Nuclear Nation 2", which opens in
Japanese cinemas next month.
"(They) are forced to live in this temporary housing without
hope for the future," he told a question and answer session
after a screening at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan
last week.
Funahashi's "Nuclear Nation" films follow the residents of
Futaba, who were evacuated after the March 2011 earthquake and
tsunami triggered meltdowns at the nearby Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear complex, dousing their town with radiation and turning
it into a "no-go zone".
In the broader region, tens of thousands were forced to flee.
He filmed the first installment, which premiered at the Berlin
International Film Festival less than a year after the disaster,
at an abandoned high school in a Tokyo suburb where 1,400 Futaba
evacuees were living in classrooms.
"Nuclear Nation 2", produced by Documentary Japan and Big River
Films, picks up from New Year 2012 and covers a two-year period.
Evacuees at the school wish each other well for the coming year,
admire New Year cards and chat over "bento", single-portion
takeout meals, trying to maintain a semblance of normal life.
Funahashi's lens deftly captures a television news program in
the background reporting on the nuclear regulator and the
problem of decontamination, underlining the issue at hand and
foreshadowing discontent to come.
MENTAL ANGUISH
Indeed, evacuees lament their living conditions as tension
grows. In one scene, a man launches a profanity-laced tirade at
Futaba council members upset with their attempt to oust the
mayor over his job performance.
[to top of second column] |
"That's the profound problem that I'm feeling now, rather than just
regaining the house or the land they have lost," said Funahashi,
referring to how the mental anguish of waiting in spartan conditions
was fraying nerves.
As they bide their time, some evacuees speak nostalgically about
better days when the nuclear plant brought money into the town,
creating jobs and helping businesses prosper.
"For 40 years it was a godsend," an elderly woman said in the film.
But a visit back into the exclusion zone - set to the melancholy
piano of Ryuichi Sakamoto's score - reveals a ghost town with space
being cleared for the storage of contaminated soil.
The government is keen to restart the country's reactors once they
pass tougher security checks imposed after the Fukushima disaster,
to reduce reliance on expensive imported fuel. Last month, the
nuclear regulator approved the restart of a nuclear plant in
southwestern Japan.
Public mistrust of atomic power remains high, however, and Funahashi
says he will keep making "Nuclear Nation" films to show the human
side of the nuclear equation.
"We are the ones who used the power from Fukushima Daiichi. I feel,
as a filmmaker, responsible to keep making this film as long as the
Futaba people's refugee life continues," he said.
(Editing by Tony Tharakan and Robert Birsel)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
