THE INVISIBLE ISLAND *FUKUSHIMA

A documentary film by Keiko Courdy

Length : 90 min, HD, Color

PIKA PIKA FILMS production

Waves crash eternally on the shore of Fukushima Daiichi power plant. A fisherman is watching the horizon from his boat. He catches fish to be tested later for radiation. Fukushima red zone, early morning traffic jam. Thousands of men are coming from the entire country to work on the contaminated site. We follow workers in their daily life. They talk. Since 2011, accidents happen one after the other at 1F power plant. The work is infinite. The clean up just started. The challenge has never been seen before : core meltdowns in three reactors, contaminated water flowing into the sea, accumulating in ever-growing storage tanks. For the government, all is under control. The landscape in the region is characterized by giant fields of bags of radioactive soil. People are actively pushed to go back to their homes. Minako decided to quit the region after her evacuation, changing her lifestyle and following the Yamabushi, mountain ascetics, to live close to nature. There is no life without risk but what risk are we ready to take? How are we ready to change our lifestyle? In Japan, everyone wishes to forget and go forward, but the traces can not be erased easily.

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I started working on this film after the release of my first documentary on Fukushima, BEYOND THE CLOUD 霧の向こう *Yonaoshi 3.11.

I have been filming every year since then, observing the tremendous change in the zone, and creating personal links with local people, following the workers of the power plant. The film needs now 10 more days of shooting to be finished.

The vision that I wish to present in this film articulates itself around personal stories, usually erased behind the official story or the media's, always looking for the spectacular.

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Some of the workers have accepted to talk and tell their personal story, because "the media often lie", and because they feel proud to help save their country or their region, even though some feel betrayed : "I was told nuclear power is safe. Nothing could ever happen".

Filming year after year in the region, my look on the film and the way to talk about the situation has changed. I would like to bring forward a long term vision, confronting nature, technology and people, listening to the workers and inhabitants but also to the voice of nature, and the wisdom of Mountains ascetics facing the destruction of the region.

This film is also the story of a civilization facing its own technological choices, a civilization that cannot master the monster it has created, a new Godzilla.

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L'ÎLE INVISIBLE *Fukushima 見えない島