Film Screening: U.S. Premiere of Witness to Hiroshima

November 19, 2008

Maryland: Documentary Short “Witness to Hiroshima” directed by Kathy Sloane and co-produced by Michele Mason and Kathy Sloane, had its United States premiere at the International Film Series ” War & Cinema”, held at the University of Maryland, Hoff Theater.

“In Kathy Sloane’s fifteen-minute film, WITNESS TO HIROSHIMA, Japanese citizen Keiji Tsuchiya, using 12 watercolors he painted in 2002, recounts his experiences in Hiroshima as a 17-year-old soldier during the month immediately following the dropping of the Atomic Bomb, and relates those experiences to his subsequent life-long commitment to saving the Japanese horseshoe crab and its habitat. 

Through the use of animated still photographs and Mr. Tsuchiya’s narrative, the film depicts the horrors Tsuchiya witnessed hours after the bomb blast, and the aid he and others offered the burned and dying victims they encountered. Out of such horror the film segues into the beautiful story of how and why Mr. Tsuchiya came to devote himself to preserving the life of the horseshoe crab.”

ERDG working with Director Kathy Sloan, provided both consultation on the natural history of the Japanese horseshoe crab (kabutogani), as well as the photographic images of kabutogani used in this poignant documentary. http://www.witnesstohiroshima.com