On Aug. 6, 1945, the United Sates dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later and less than 200 miles away, they dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. The death toll was more than 200,000. But in an amazing story of luck and survival, nearly 200 people lived through the Hiroshima bombing and sought refuge in Nagasaki only to face the same terrible fate days later.
Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Hideo Nakamura tells the story of those survivors in Twice Bombed, Twice Survived: The Doubly Atomic Bombed of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures will sponsor the U.S. premier of the hour-long drama in a free screening on Wednesday, Aug. 2, at 7:00 p.m. in Roone Arledge Cinema, 2920 Broadway at 115th Street. (The producers will hold a second screening on Aug. 3 at 1:00 p.m. at the United Nations Dag Hammersjköld Library, 405 East 42nd Street, Room L-360.)
The stories of the 165 nijyuu hibakusha, or doubly atomic bombed, have gone largely undocumented and are not part of the common narrative about the World War II bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nine of the survivors were within the blast zone in both cities.
One of those individuals was Mr. Yamaguchi, an engineer at Mitsubishi Heavy Industry who had been dispatched to Hiroshima to help design a new cargo ship. Yamaguchi will participate in a Q&A after the film.
For more information, contact co-producer Hideo Nakamura at (347) 661-0219, (212) 367-9101 or senseny@aol.com.
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