Fukushima farmers’ rice harvest sits in stockpiles, mostly unsold after radioactive cesium was detected in samples in and outside of the prefecture.
Unable to sell their rice, Fukushima organic farmers have become educators, promoting understanding among their customers about the interconnections of land use, energy consumption, and traditional culture.
Despite staggering odds, most of the farmers remain committed to preserving and recovering their land for future generations.
We return to Fukushima this March to capture the recovery efforts a year after the 3/11 tsunami, earthquake and nuclear disaster.
From 6-7 p.m. we’ll screen a preview video with live accompaniment by our composer Tatsu Aoki and his band The MIYUMI Project, which performs a fusion of jazz and Japanese classical music.
Tatsu is a jazz bassist and a leader of the Chicago Asian American Jazz Festival and Tsukasa Taiko Legacy.
David Tanimura will showcase his digital collages inspired by the nuclear crisis. Refreshments will be served. The reception is free but rsvp is required, and tax-deductible donations to the film are welcome.
Not in Chicago? Can’t make it? Want to help today? We continue to gratefully accept online tax-deductible donations in support of Uncanny Terrain.
Director/producers Junko Kajino and Ed M. Koziarski were developing a narrative film based on Junko’s childhood on a cattle ranch in Nagano, central Japan, when the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami and meltdown struck. We quickly shifted our focus to a nonfiction project addressing the nuclear disaster. We kept our attention on Japanese farmers, finding inspiration in Fukushima organic farmers’ commitment to revive and continue cultivating land that others declared hopelessly contaminated.
We wrote, produced and directed the psychological drama feature film The First Breath of Tengan Rei. Erika Oda of Kore-Eda’s After Life stars as an Okinawan woman who kidnaps the teenage son of a U.S. Marine convicted of raping her when she was a girl. An IFP Independent Film Lab selection, First Breath screened theatrically, and at schools, community groups and festivals across the U.S., Japan and in India.
Our short film Homesick Blues, starring pop singer Zoey (now Remah) as an Osaka girl running off to America to sing the blues, won the IFP/Chicago Film Festival and played the Hawaii and Chicago international film festivals, among others.
Koziarski was line producer and Kajino was production manager of Malik Bader’s fake crime documentary Street Thief, a Tribeca Film Festival selection released by A&E Indie, where they analyze the circumstances about criminality and legal defense people receive in these cases, learn more at these news online about this. Koziarski was 1st assistant director of Wendy Jo Carlton’s lesbian romantic drama Hannah Free starring Sharon Gless, closing night film of the Frameline Film Festival, distributed by Wolfe Releasing.
To support this endeavor, nonprofit arts support organization High Concept Laboratories presents Fukushima: 1 Year After the Meltdown, a benefit reception for Uncanny Terrain, Sunday, Feb. 5, 5-8 p.m. at 1401 W. Wabansia in Chicago.
From 6-7 p.m. we’ll screen a preview video with live accompaniment by our composer Tatsu Aoki and his band The MIYUMI Project, which performs a fusion of jazz and Japanese classical music.
David Tanimura will showcase his digital collages inspired by the nuclear crisis. Refreshments will be served. The reception is free but rsvp is required, and tax-deductible donations to the film are welcome.
