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The World Is Terrified: The Reality of the “Ash of Death”

At a time when the USSR and the USA fervently vied to develop nuclear arms, the mass media buzzed with terms inspired by nuclear testing on Bikini Atoll such as the “Daigo Fukuryu Maru Incident,” the “ash of death,” “radioactive tuna,” and “radioactive rain,” and nuclear testing continued, Japan, the only nation to have suffered an atom-bomb attack, felt massive anxiety. “What is the radioactive ash of death?” “What effect does it have on living creatures?” Against the background of the era, the film scientifically describes the terrors of radioactivity with the cooperation of many scientists, physicians and research institutions.

The World Is Terrified: The Reality of the “Ash of Death”

NR 1957
The New Japanese Geography Film Series: Villages of the Northeast

The farming villages that exist throughout Tohoku are known for their rice production but struggle with cold-weather crop damage. Many who rely on the single crop this land produces end up leaving their villages to earn money. At the same time, innovative work has progressed with im- proved adaptation of rice beds to the environment. The film also features people who have cleared land for dairy farming and regions where large-scale land reclamation projects have been undertaken.

The New Japanese Geography Film Series: Villages of the Northeast

NR 1959
The Roof of Japan

This film was touted as its country's first full-length "nature documentary." Following the tradition established by Disney's "True-Life Adventures," the film transports the viewers to the loftiest heights of Japan's mountain ranges. Here, the hardy residents struggle for survival against the elements, and do a pretty good job of it (after all, they've been there longer than the audience has!) Especially well handled are the sequences involving the animal denizens of the snow-capped regions.

The Roof of Japan

9.0 1957
Living in a Rough Sea

The inhabitants of Cape Muroto in Kochi Prefecture depend on fishing for their living, but have no fishing port in their village and so use the port of Uraga in Kanagawa Prefecture as their main port. 22 crew members in a wooden boat of less than 100t fish for tuna in rough seas, 4,500 miles away from home near Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean, where hydrogen bomb experiments are being carried out. The film focuses on an 18-year-old trainee and his labors aboard the fishing boat for two months, precisely reflecting the fisherman’s daily life.

Living in a Rough Sea

NR 1958
Caisson

The film is a promotional film, recording the construction of a pressurized lockbox at the Hachinohe power plant in Aomori. Matsumoto's official first directorial debut at the Shinriken Motion Picture, the film found a 16mm film print stored in a civil library and digitized. His official credit is the assistant director in Silver Ring, commonly known as Matsumoto's first work. Matsumoto challenged to objectively capture the image of the worker in camera in spite of the limitations of promotional films where the records of the construction site were prioritized.

Caisson

NR 1957
The Unforgivable Atom Bomb: The Singing Voice of 1954 Japan

This film documents a large-scale event organized by the Utagoe (Singing Voice) working class choral and musical movement that took place over the course of three days in Tokyo on November 27, 1954 at Kyoritsu Auditorium and Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium. Tens of thousands of people from factories and farming villages across Japan take part. Folk songs from different local regions of Japan are sung and laborer choruses perform. Choruses and songs and dances from Korea and China are heard. The finale is a mass choral performance of “The Unforgivable Atom Bomb.”

The Unforgivable Atom Bomb: The Singing Voice of 1954 Japan

NR 1954