Keïko Courdy
Keïko Courdy went filming in the zone every year since 2011, developing a trust relationship with local people and nuclear workers. She filmed rare testimonies of nuclear workers, revealing the hidden life of this parallel world.
"The vision I wish to present in this film articulates itself around personal stories, usually erased behind the official story, or the medias, always looking for the spectacular. Filming year after year in the region, my look on the film and the way to talk about the situation has changed. I wanted to bring forward a longterm vision, confronting a choice of energy technology that has engendered a disaster, people facing the destruction of their life and region, and nuclear workers, the poorest layers of society coming from far away to make money. I have tried to catch the voice of the territory itself, and the relationship with nature of a young evacuee who became Yamabushi (Shaman). Tepco and the government have their agendas, but in nuclear crises, resilience is linked to unknown and uncontrollable factors, the time of nature to clean itself, and the time of people to heal and go forward. In this film, I tried to show a form of "slow violence" such as defined by Rob Nixon, or maybe a "soft violence" or an "invisible violence ». This film is the story of a civilization facing its own technological choices, a civilization that cannot master the monster it has created."