Radioactivists of Japan

From Clarissa Seidel and Julia Leser:

Radioactivists Trailer from ginger blonde on Vimeo.

http://radioactivists.org/

The three folded catastrophe that shattered the northeast of Japan on March 11 – first the 9.0 earthquake, then the tsunami, and finally the ‘manmade’ catastrophe of Fukushima – is already showing its consequences, that will probably last for the next decades. The whole dimension of the catastrophe cannot be realized today, but still, we are getting aware of the socio-political tremors of historical significance. Especially in Tokyo, the capital of Japan, a political interest is arousing just now, a protest against the information- and nuclear policies of the ‘iron triangle’, consisting of the government, Tepco and the Nuclear Safety Agency.

The present protest culture in Japan seems to be not really well-established, compared to other countries. There is merely one exception: shirôto no ran (amateurs revolt), a group of creative activists, who fight for more freedom in public space and an inventive Do It Yourself-culture in the alternative area of Kôenji, Tokyo. 

Therefore it is not really a surprise that shirôto no ran organized the biggest demonstration in Japan since the 1970s, which took place on April 10th, just one month after the earthquake. This protest gathered more than 15.000 people demonstrating against nuclear power.Furthermore, the mobilization of those anti-nuclear protests brings up a lot more subjects of discussion, for instance the work- and living conditions in the nowadays capitalism and globalization.

 

We felt the urge to document those protests, and therefore decided - rather spontaneously - to shoot this movie. As an independent production, we don't get funded by TV broadcasters or other media concerns. Still, we now need your support to pay for our equipment, the translations and post-production, all in all 2.500 $. As you can imagine this still doesn't cover all the costs; but it's a start.

The Impact

We want to show to the world through various channels what is going in Japan right now. The Japanese media is still trying to ignore the protesters' angry voices, because they are funded by energy companies such as TEPCO. But those people on the streets in Japan, all those activists, punks, rockers, hippies, families, children - they need to be heard, they are scared of the future, and they are more than mad at the government and the Japanese mass media. 

Our movie wants to give them a voice, and all the possible attention, because their courage deserves it!

What We Need & What You Get

This is our first documentary. And we didn't have a lot of time to prepare it, since one can't really expect a catastrophe like the one on March 11 coming. Neither did one expect that so many Japanese people would get out on the streets in such a short period of time: just a month after the catastrophe struck Japan, several ten thousand people protested in Tokyo!The demonstrations that happen right now are the biggest in Japanese history since the 1970s! 

These quick developments just left us with the decision to go and shoot the movie NOW! So we bought a decent camera, a micropone and a recording device (plus some other stuff) and took the next plane to Japan.

Since we are still students, we actually don't have the money to do that. But this wasn't about money, we wanted to this with all our hearts. So we borrowed the money from our dear friends and families for the moment, but now is the time to give it back to them.

So putting everything together, the equipments, the flights etc., we come to a total of $2,500. As you can imagine this still doesn't cover all the costs; but it's a start. If we rose more than the $2.500 it would still all go into this movie's budget.

Please support us, to get this movie out there as soon as possible!

We are also preparing perks for you, for example hand-printed T-Shirts as well as DVDs in cases that are each individually designed and sprayed - streetstyle!

Other Ways You Can Help

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Thanks to Kz Sagrada for this post