Sakuratai 6. August

In the organizer's words:

さくら隊散る Sakuratai chiru

Director: SHINDÔ Kaneto
1988, 110 minutes, OVD, 16 mm

Hiroshima-born master director Shindô Kaneto (1912-2012) made several films about the dangers of nuclear radiation. Based on the book Sakuratai zenmetsu ("The Annihilation of the Sakura Unit") by Hagie Ezu, this docudrama tells the authentic story of a traveling theater group, almost all of whose members died when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

The Sakuratai ("Cherry Blossom Group") was founded during the Second World War by a group of actors and actresses, whose central figure was the actor Maruyama Sadao. The film shows interviews with friends, family members and colleagues of the director and traces the fate of members of the theater group who initially survived but died shortly afterwards as a result of the radiation.

Film series
The value of remembering
Japanese films against forgetting

In the current time of change, remembering and commemorating the past is more important than ever. In 2024, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Japanese anti-nuclear weapons organization "Nihon Hidankyo", a grassroots movement of survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The Norwegian Nobel Committee's citation states that the group, founded in 1956, was awarded the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for having shown through testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.

Japanese film history also addresses the suffering and hardships that people had to contend with in connection with the war. The film series shows works by renowned directors that focus on the fate of individual people.

It begins with a family story based on the notes of a doctor(Kono ko o nokoshite). Music plays an important role in a Japanese soldier's fight for survival (Biruma no tategoto) and on an island, a teacher cares for her pupils(Nijûshi no hitomi). A docudrama depicts true events about a traveling theater group (Sakuratai chiru), followed by the story of a girl who folds cranes in the face of death(Senbazuru). A film about the skull of a kamikaze pilot(Fûon) and a production inspired by the historical figure Onoda Hirô(ONODA, Ichimanya o koete) conclude the program.

Price information:

Admission free