Hellfire: A Journey From Hiroshima

Director: Michael Camerini, John Junkerman, James MacDonald

Institute History

  • 1987 Sundance Film Festival

Description

They are known throughout the world “the artists of the atomic bomb,” the Japanese husband and wife muralists, and ‘Toshi Maruki. Their collaborative relationship is unique: one paints a painfully detailed vision of the victims of the atomic blast; the other conceals the carefully delineated brush strokes with a grey-black ink “wash.” The first artist restates the specifics of the image; the second re-conceals. Through the repetition of this process, the work emerges.

The subject of Hellfire is so painful, so fraught with implications for our collective fate, that one would expect a film that is unwatchable. The success of the film, however, is born of its subjects strengths, a delicate balance of memory and compassion. Gold Prize, 1986 Competition for Films on Japan; Interfilm Award, 1986, Mannheim Film Festival.

— Karen Cooper

Screening Details

Credits

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