When the Cold War ended, the generations that lived through it were relieved to finally vanquish the specter of a mushroom cloud from their minds. But today, thousands of nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia remain on high-alert, still poised to destroy the planet. In Japan, atomic bomb survivors struggle with nightmarish memories and negative health effects; atomic veterans, down-winders, and atomic workers around the globe also continue to suffer from the effects of radiation exposure. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 may have temporarily damaged the soul of Japan, but has anyone ever taken an account of what the Bomb has done, and continues to do, to the soul of the country that dropped it? How might we alter the soul of a nation in order to truly live without the threat of total destruction? In a globe-trotting journey through various perspectives on nuclear weapons, filmmaker Bud Ryan takes us from the Peace Museums of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the "Nuclear Science" museums of the United States; to the place that birthed the atomic bomb, (and cares for it still) the state of New Mexico, where Ryan now lives. Featuring former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, authors Gar Alperovitz and Jonathan Schell, Japanese bomb survivors, and many others, THE FORGOTTEN BOMB explores our pre-conceptions about nuclear weapons and their history, investigates how they inform our sense of identity and discovers what the Bomber can learn from the Bombed.
—Cinema Libre Studio