One year before the Fukushima reactor exploded, the International Uranium Film Festival (IUFF) was founded in 2010 in Santa Teresa, the famous artist quarter in the heart of Rio de Janeiro.
It is the first festival of its kind that addresses all nuclear and radioactive issues. The aim is to inform about nuclear power, uranium mining, nuclear weapons and the risks of radioactivity.
Independent documentaries and movies are the best tool to bring that information to a diverse international public.
Uranium mining, nuclear accidents, atomic bomb factories, nuclear waste, and depleted uranium weapons: No matter if you are in favour or against the use of nuclear power or uranium: all people should be informed about the risks. The International Uranium Film Festivals creates a neutral space to throw light on all nuclear issues.
After premiering in Rio, the International Uranium Film Festival traveled to other cities and countries. In the past years it has been in São Paulo, Lisbon, Berlin, and Munich, among others, as well as in ten major cities in India including New Delhi and Hyderabad. In 2014 the festival travelled from Rio de Janeiro to Washington DC, New York City, and Berlin. Now it is in Amman.
The Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung’s Palestine & Jordan office, in cooperation with the Royal Film Commission – Jordan and the Goethe Institut Jordan, is inviting for the International Uranium Film Festival’s premiere in Amman, Jordan. The three day event is backed by a number of Jordanian environmental organizations, namely the Jordanian Friends of the Environment, the Society for Energy Conservation and Sustainable Environment (E-Case), and Greenpeace Jordan.
The International Uranium Film Festival is a partner of the Brazilian Film Commission of Rio de Janeiro and, through the Institute for Science and Technology, a partner of FAETEC, the Ministry for Science and Education of the state of Rio de Janeiro.
ABITA. CHILDREN FROM FUKUSHIMA
Germany, 2012, 4 min, Directors: Shoko Hara and Paul Brenner, Animation, no dialogue.
YELLOW OSCAR WINNER 2013
Animated short film about Fukushima’s children who can’t play outside anymore because the nature is contaminated with radioactive elements from Fukushima. To play outside is only a dream.
Eternal Tears
Ukraine, 2011, 11min, Director: Kseniya Simonova, Animation, no dialogue.
The film was created in sand animation technique as a tribute to those who died immediately or was dying a slow death for years or who today is seriously ill having received the radiation dose as a child. Director‘s note: “Chernobyl consequences, we see them today, the increasing number of cancer patients, especially among children in my country. These are the children of my peers, peers of Chernobyl catastrophe. Every event of our times and each event of the past should teach us: The main thing is to remember.” Kseniya Simonova
A2-B-C
Japan, 2013, 71 min, Director: Ian Thomas Ash, Documentary, Japanese & English, Arabic subtitles.
The award-winning film A2-B-C is named for the different stages of growth of thyroid cells from harmless cysts tocancer. Many children in Fukushima were never evacuated after the nuclear meltdown on March 11, 2011. Now the number of Fukushima children found to have thyroid cysts and nodules is increasing. What will this mean for their future? „There is no way for us to escape from this fear. We’re not only worried about external radiation exposure, but also about internal exposure. So we’re testing all the food.“
Director’s note: “I didn’t come to Japan to make a film about Fukushima. Japan is my home, and after the nuclear meltdown in 2011, I documented what was happening around me.
‘A2-B-C’ is about the lie that decontamination is possible and about the children living and going to school in areas contaminated with radiation. But if you leave the film thinking “oh, those poor people over there in that far away country”, you’ll be missing the point. What happened in Fukushima affects all of us. It is not over. And it could happen again.”
Q&A with Ian Thomas Ash + N.N.
