60 Years After Hiroshima, Two Films Confront the Dropping of the Bomb Through the Haunting, Life-affirming Art of Toshi and Iri Maruki. — HIROSHIMA NO PIKA — Plus the Academy Award Nominated Film — HELLFIRE: A JOURNEY FROM HI... more »ROSHIMA
HIROSHIMA NO PIKA is an animated film made by Noriaki Tsuchimoto based on the award-winning children's book by the Japanese artist Toshi Maruki. Through Maruki's heart-rending but beautiful water color illustrations, the film tells the story of a young girl and her family who live through the horrific bombing of Hiroshima. While the horror lies in the reality of the story, the beauty of the film's articulation creates a sensitive and affecting movie for children and their parents to engage in together.
Narrator Susan Sarandon, a longtime supporter of anti-nuclear war campaigns, lends her talent to this historical yet timely story, inspiring children to remember Hiroshima in the hope that it will never be repeated.
Nominated for an Academy Award, HELLFIRE: A JOURNEY FROM HIROSHIMA captures the artists Iri and Toshi Maruki in action as they create "one of the world's most powerful and sustained expressions of the effect of the atomic bomb" (New York Times) - the Hiroshima Murals. Haunted by the memories of Hiroshima after the atomic blast, the Maruki's began a series of monumental paintings depicting what they had seen. The Hiroshima Murals have now been viewed by over 100 million people around the world. With engaging interviews and extended sequences of the Marukis at work, HELLFIRE reveals a message of hope in our nuclear age, and is a reminder of the power of art to render visible and meaningful what still seems unimaginable.« less