Shinpei Takeda

Shinpei Takeda is a Japanese filmmaker, visual artist, and musician based in Tijuana, Mexico. His works includes a wide range of themes regarding memories and history in various mediums: documentary films, multi-media installations, video projection, public installations, community collaborative projects in various public and non-public contexts. He has been collecting over 50 oral stories of atomic bomb survivors living in North and South Americas since 2005. His recent films include "El Mexico mas Cercano a Japon" (2008) about Japanese photographer in Tijuana in 1920s.

Eiji Wakamatsu

A friend of director, Shinpei Takeda, who comes to help him with the atomic bomb survivors' interviews. In search of his identity, he confronts his psychological dilemma typical of the young generation of Japan – wanting to connect, but afraid of connecting.

Statement

2 former high school friends drive from Canada to Mexico as they visit atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki that live in the States. During the trip, they record the piece of a modern history crucially important in Japanese collective psyche while exploring their own identities and revealing the reality of psychological scars.

Mexico/Japan | 2010 | 73 min | Documentary Director: Shinpei Takeda | Producer: Shinpei Takeda and Eiji Wkamatsu Original Language: Japanese/English | Subtitles: French Synopsis: 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 18 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. Director Shinpei Takeda has...