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Title: BORDERS IN FUKUSHIMA: July 2016

Reference number: 13699

Date: 2017

Director: d. Yushin Toda

Production company: japan desk scotland

Sound: sound

Original format: unknown

Colour: col

Fiction: non-fiction

Running time: 65.11 mins

Description: japan desk scotland’s fifth documentary about the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011, looking at a five-year collaborative research project between Fukushima and Chernobyl.

Credits: p. Fumi Nakabachi and Yushin Toda, japan desk scotland
comm. w. Yushin Toda
ph. Fumi Nakabachi
ed. Yushin Toda
m. Ashenspire, Marius Pirhonen
proofreading Eleanor Small

Shotlist: Filmmaker's synopsis:

This is japan desk scotland’s fifth Fukushima documentary, based on the interviews carried out in July 2016.

Fukushima University’s Institute of Environmental Radioactivity is to lead a 5-year collaborative project between Fukushima and Chernobyl from April 2017, with support from japan International Cooperation Agency. Kenji Nanba, its Director, states the project’s dual aims: to upgrade Chernobyl’s monitoring equipment; and to conduct collaborative research. One of the differences between Fukushima and Chernobyl is about decontamination. It has been carried out in Fukushima, reducing the size of evacuation areas, while it hasn’t been done in Chernobyl, leaving the boundaries as they were decades ago.

In Fukushima, decontamination has been carried out by the Ministry of the Environment. Seiji Ozawa of the Ministry talks that the nuclear accident left the residents a profound distrust of what the government does, including decontamination work. Because of this distrust, the relevant municipalities set up Decontamination Verification Committee to examine the outcome of the government decontamination work, and Kencho Kawatsu, Fukushima University, chairs Tomioka Town’s Committee.

There is a target for lifting the evacuation order - 20 mSv/y for an air dose rate. Kimiaki Saito, japan Atomic Energy Agency, explains the significance of this benchmark in relation to the international framework.

Students, graduates and staff of Fukushima University talk about their life and the life of those left their homes after the nuclear accident. Some undergraduate students experienced the accident when they were a high school student, and chose Fukushima University to study environmental radiation.

Yoshitaka Takagai, Fukushima University, has completed a new tool to measure strontium-90 quickly and cheaply, and it has started use at the troubled nuclear plant. He talks about the importance of carrying out decommissioning work despite piles of difficulties.

Video footages taken by Kawatsu of Tomioka Station (in November 2011) and of Ukedo area of Namie Town (in August 2011), and photos of Ukedo (December 2016) taken by Miyuki Sasaki, a graduate, are used.

Interviewees (in order of their first appearances):
Kenji Nanba, Mark Zheleznyak, Kimiaki Saito, Hirofumi Tsukada, Kencho Kawatsu, Seiji Ozawa, Azusa Goto, Aya Yokoyama, Masakazu Eshiro, Teruyo Kishinami, Izumi Mizushima, Fumiko Goto, Hiroki Saito, Miyuki Sasaki, Misaki Ueda, Ryutaro Kaneko, Natsuki Takeda, Tomomi Yanagita, Mayuko Noda, Misaki Ageishi, Alexei Kinoplev, Ian Byrness, Mathew Camadine, Yoshitaka Takagai