Producer and director Tamotsu Matsubara with 30 years Documentary and media experience is president of the film company Power-I. Matsubara has been reporting on the situation in post-tsunami Fukushima since May 2011. He started filming Nuclear Cattle in 2011. This Documentary was a culmination of 5 years hard work. The aim was to film the farmers day-to-day trials and tribulations and follow them as they make the do-or-die decisions that will change their lives for good or bad forever. Tamotsu Matsubara: „We started to gather information in Fukushima from June, 2011. At the same time, we proposed this project to NHK (Japan’s National Broadcaster) and to oversea broadcasters, but we couldn’t get funding for such a sensitive topic.“
Japan 2016
Director: Tamotsu Matsubara
Production: Power-i Inc
Documentary, 98 min
Japanese with English subtitles
http://www.power-i.ne.jp/hibakuushi/pnote/
This is the story of innocent cattle farmers forced from the hills they’ve called home for decades due to the nuclear disaster at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Not willing to go along with the government’s plan to slaughter their livestock and livelihoods, the farmers decide to keep their cattle alive as a symbol of resistance in the fight to rid Japan of nuclear power. But the feeding cost is a huge burden. Stripped of their homes and livelihoods and fighting a losing battle against time, many farmers have reached a breaking point. Now, the „radioaktive“ cows became a symbol of the fight against nuclear power....