The Women of Fukushima - film screening this Thursday in Santa Rosa CA. On January 29, 2015, John Bertucci, co-founder of the group Fukushima Response, and Mary Beth Brangan, co-director of the Ecological Options Network, will screen the 2012 film “Women of Fukushima” and answer questions from the audience about current and anticipated local impacts of the ongoing Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. Public is invited to bring their questions and concerns to this exceptional screening of the film “Women of Fukushima” and contribute to an informed and compassionate Q&A discussion period aimed at answering and empowering those questions and concerns. Meet-the-speakers reception begins at 6:00pm, Thursday January 29 Sonoma County Museum, 425 Seventh Street Santa Rosa, CA, US, 95401 MEMBER $8 ~ NON-MEMBER $13 ~ LECTURE SPONSOR $100 Screening of “Women of Fukushima” (30 min.) begins at 7:00pm, followed by Q&A until 9:00pm USF Santa Rosa ‘campus’ close to the Museum, 416 B Street This event is a Sonoma County Museum presentation, organized in conjunction with the current exhibition, “Hole in the Head: The Battle for Bodega Bay and the Birth of the Environmental Movement.” “Women of Fukushima” (“Fukushima no Onnatachi”) is a 30 minute film featuring six Japanese women who offer brutally honest views on how the March 11, 2011 nuclear accident in Fukushima has affected their lives, homes and families. Supported with haunting footage from abandoned towns around the plant, these women bear witness to the immense social and environmental devastation that can hit a region, and destroy a country, when nuclear reactors melt down in the vicinity. An exhibit celebrating the 50th anniversary of a battle that successfully blocked the installation of a nuclear power plant on Bodega Head is a fitting context for the screening of this film and the discussion to follow. Bill Kortum, who played a key role in the Hole in the Head story, had this to say about two of the many isotopes released in nuclear accidents, “Iodine-131 has one redeeming feature, its half-life is only 30 days, whereas the Strontium which would also come out of the plant, it lasts forever. It’s not something to play around with. Thanks to the responsible efforts of concerned citizens like Bill, we here in Sonoma County have been spared the risk of a Fukushima level catastrophe ever happening in our vicinity. We have, however, our own potential “Fukushimas,” one still operating in southern California, and the situation at the Daiichi nuclear power plant is far from under control. The melted cores will be spewing radioactive contamination into the Pacific Ocean and global jet streams for decades, if not centuries, so there remains great reason to be concerned. For the past three years, John Bertucci has worked with FukushimaResponse to alert people to the long-term threat posed by the nuclear disaster in Japan, organizing informational events and campaigns, notably the “Fukushima is Here” human mural on Ocean Beach, San Francisco, October 19, 2013. He has made many independent films in Europe and the United States and is presently the Executive Director of Petaluma Community Access TV. Mary Beth Brangan is a documentary video and radio producer, educator, community and international organizer. With her life and work partner James Heddle, she co-directs EON, the Ecological Options Network, producing video reports and blogs on activists and organizations working, at local, national and international levels, for solutions to planetary challenges. Theyre currently working on a documentary based on the June 2012 closure of San Onofre Nuclear Power Station. Bertucci and Brangan hope to engage the public in an informed and productive dialogue, fielding questions to the best of their ability, helping to understand, track and mitigate as best we can the inevitable accumulation of radioactive contamination where we live. For instance, Fukushima Response is developing a regional monitoring project to test for levels of radioactive contamination in the air, food and soil of Sonoma County, as well as sending samples of seawater collected at Bodega Head to a crowd-sourced ocean monitoring site for testing. For more information & interviews contact: John Bertucci 707-775-8617 Trailer for “Women of Fukushima” - vimeo/51054104 Exhibition website - sonomacountymuseum.org/ Ecological Options Network - eon3.net FUKUSHIMA RESPONSE - FukushimaResponse.org Yannick Phillips Tule Lazule
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 21:49:03 +0000