Event

WITNESS TO HIROSHIMA

In Kathy Sloanes sixteen-minute film, Witness To Hiroshima, Japanese citizen Keiji Tsuchiya, using 12 watercolors he painted in 2001, tells of his experiences in Hiroshima as a 17-year-old soldier during the month immediately following the dropping of the atomic bomb, and relates those experiences to his subsequent life-long commitment to saving the Japanese horseshoe crab and its habitat.

Through the use of animated still photographs and Mr. Tsuchiya's narrative, the film depicts the horrors Tsuchiya witnessed hours after the bomb blast, and the aid he and others offered the burned and dying victims they encountered. Out of such horror the film segues into the beautiful story of how and why Mr. Tsuchiya came to devote himself to preserving the life of the horseshoe crab.

Michele Mason, assistant professor, Department of Asian and East European Languages and Cultures at the University of Maryland, College Park, provides a fluid, nuanced continuous translation of Mr.Tsuchiyas story. The combination of photographs, paintings, and sound capture the emotional richness and deep wisdom of the unusual and significant story of one mans response to suffering.