- This movie is a documentary film by Peter Townsend's daughter, Isabelle, who visited Nagasaki to discover her father and Taniguchi's relationship.
- The Postman from Nagasaki
It is 1945 and a 16-year-old postal delivery boy is in Nagasaki when the atom bomb is dropped. A non-fiction novel depicts his struggles as a victim of the bombing (hibakusha), his battle to survive and then his struggles with the horrifying after effects. This is where our feature film begins. The Postman of Nagasaki is a non-fiction book written by the late Peter Townsend in 1984. Townsend had been traveling the world on a fact-finding tour when he paid a visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and was inspired to tell the stories of children victims of war. He returned to Nagasaki in 1982 where he met Sumiteru Taniguchi and then wrote his story. Sumiteru Taniguchi (1929-2017) was a 16-year-old postal worker living in Nagasaki when the A-bomb was dropped on the city. Caught in the explosion, Taniguchi miraculously survived what were tragic circumstances only to then spend his life dealing with the horrible effects of radiation sickness. Townsend's book earned global acclaim for depicting the cruelty and futility of war.
His back severely burned, Sumiteru Taniguchi became the face of Nagasaki hibakusha. He dedicated his life to the promotion of peace and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1970, a film released by the United States armed forces showing the immediate aftermath of the bomb shows Taniguchi as a youth, his back severely burned. That image was published in the Asahi newspaper upon discovery that he was still alive, and Taniguchi then became the representative face of Nagasaki bomb victims. He made a speech at the Nagasaki Peace Park, and his peace activism would eventually be acknowledged in a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015. He continued to be active in the fight to abolish nuclear weapons until his death in 2017.
This movie is a documentary film by Peter Townsend's daughter, Isabelle, who visited Nagasaki to discover her father and Taniguchi's relationship. Through the mediation of Japanese film director, Mika Kawase, Isabelle who was living in France, learned that the boy who served as the model for her father's book was still alive. Isabelle planned to meet with him in Nagasaki, but before the trip could be taken, Taniguchi passed away. Isabelle scoured materials and tapes of the period from her father's library and found voice memo recordings of her father taken from his trips to Nagasaki. With recordings in hand, Isabelle embarked on a trip to Nagasaki some 36 years after her father to learn what had prompted him to write the book, retrace her father's steps and discover the lessons it holds for her life today. In Nagasaki, Sumiteru Taniguchi still commands great respect from citizens, and this film on him drew widespread attention. Isabelle's arrival in Nagasaki was met with great fanfare by local media.
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By what name was Nagasaki no yuubin haitatsu (2022) officially released in Canada in English?
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