On Feb. 1 (Sun), the screening and talk event of “Iwaki Note (FUKUSHIMA VOICE)” were held at the Hiroshima City Plaza for Town Development through Citizen Exchange. The screening event was co-hosted with “OPERATION Tsunagari”, a student volunteer group at the University of Hiroshima.
The manga artist, Daisuke Nishijima, was invited and after the screening a talk session under the theme “New ties and encounters after the catastrophic earthquake” was held. Nishijima deals with the earthquake and nuclear power station accident through his medium, the Tsunagari members are involved in support activities as volunteers, and the student directors created the movie, “Iwaki Note (FUKUSHIMA VOICE)”, which is trying to spread the voices of Fukushima. All 3 in their own ways spoke about the encounters and ties that developed through their respective activities. In the questions from the floor and questionnaires after the screening, inquiries about what sort of support could be offered from Hiroshima to the Tohoku region, and the necessity to keep talking about the disaster through documentaries and fiction so that the disaster won’t fall into oblivion were pointed out. Four years have passed since the disastrous earthquake, and while it was an opportunity to reconfirm the significance of spreading “Iwaki Note (FUKUSHIMA VOICE)”, it also raised the issue of coming up with more ways of channeling it. (Iida)