Hiroshima Nagasaki Download
Shinpei Takeda
2010 - 73 min - Mini DV - Couleur - Mexique

Upon the end of the World War II, people that survived the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki immigrated to USA. Co-existing with the physical trauma of radiation and psychological scar of the destruction, these survivors have lived quietly in a country that was once considered their “state’s enemy.”
Sixty-four years later, 2 former high school friends - in the midst of their search of their identities as Japanese - began their journey to seek Hiroshima and Nagasaki deeply entrenched in the collective psyche of every Japanese.
For a younger generation of Japanese, can their experiences of atomic bomb be truly understood? How does this memory stay alive for the coming generation?
As the two drove down the American west coast visiting eighteen survivors of atomic bomb as well as a holocaust survivor, they would hear the most intimate moments of their lives and reveal the cruel nature of psychological scars. With the vast landscape of American west in their background, the two reflects on their relationship to the contemporary history of Japan.