In a new documentary film, Hadashi no Gen ga Mita Hiroshima (Hiroshima as Seen by Barefoot Gen) produced by Tomo-Corp in cooperation with Siglo, Nakazawa Keiji (born, 1939) recalls his childhood experience of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima city, and explains how that he found an outlet for expressing his experiences through the medium of Japanese comics, most notably through the Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen) manga series.Nakazawa Keiji visits places in Hiroshima that he was familiar with as a child and takes us to the spot where he was standing when the bomb exploded. He describes what he witnessed, in moving and often harrowing detail.
Fascinating details of life in 1940s Hiroshima are also glimpsed, such as how he and other boys would play in the building that is now the A-Bomb Dome.
Nakazawa Keiji explains how he got a job as a manga artist and how he started to draw manga dealing with his own wartime experiences.
As he describes some of his experiences, equivalent frames from his manga stories are shown, making a vivid link between Nakazawa Keiji’s personal experience and its final expression in graphic images for mass-market comic monthlies such as Shonen Jump.
This film was directed by Tomoko Watanabe of ANT-Hiroshima, who also conducted the interviews with Nakazawa Keiji.
The documentary film will be shown in Tokyo and Hiroshima, in Japanese only, details below:
Hiroshima
Location: Hachoza, 8th Floor, Fukuya Department Store, Hachobori Honten, Ebisucho 6-26, Nakaku, Hiroshima.
Tel: 082-546-1158
From: Saturday 30th July 2011
To: Friday 5th August 2011
Showing at: 3:55pm
Adults: ¥1,500
Concessions: ¥1,000
Tokyo
Location: Auditorium Shibuya, Kinohaus 2F, Maruyamacho 1-5, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Tel: 03-6809-0538
From: Saturday 6th August 2011
To: Friday 26th August 2011
Showing at: 10:30am
Bookings: ¥1200
Door: ¥1500
Copies of the DVD my be purchased online – Click Here!
