Out of the Past - KVIFF 60/80 / Genbaku no ko / Japan 1954
The end of the American occupation of Japan meant that, among other things, the country had to come to terms with a horrific legacy of the past, the impact of which had thus far been silenced by the censors – the atom bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Director Kaneto Shindō was the first to render this oppressive memento on the big screen. Children of Hiroshima, based on the book by Arata Osada, who witnessed the Hiroshima bombing himself, is a softly contoured portrait of the survivors, whose bodies and souls bore indelible traces long after the war had ended. The film, awarded the Peace Prize at the Karlovy Vary festival, was seen as a strong political gesture at the time of production and was not given its official American premiere until 2011. Second Grand Prix and FIPRESCI Award in 1966.
Tomáš Hubáček
97 min / Black & white, 35 mm
Director Kaneto Shindo
/ Screenplay Arata Osada, Kaneto Shindō
/ Dir. of Photography Takeo Itô
/ Music Akira Ifukube
/ Editor Yoshitama Imaizumi
/ Art Director Takashi Marumo
/ Producer Kōzaburō Yoshimura
/ Production Hiroshima City
/ Cast Nobuko Otowa, Osamu Takizawa, Masao Shimizu, Jūkichi Uno, Akira Yamanouchi
Kaneto Shindō. Selected filmography: Children of Hiroshima (Genbaku no ko, 1952), The Naked Island (Hadaka no shima, 1960), Onibaba (1964), Black Cat (Yabu no naka no kuroneko, 1968), Tree Without Leaves (Rakuyōju, 1986), By Player (Sanmon yakusha, 2000).
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