Akira Onoda films Fukushima

March 6, 2015

FOUR YEARS AFTER: For filmmaker, everything changed in Fukushima hometown

http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201503060010

By TAKESHI TERUYA/ Starff Writer

FUTABA, Fukushima Prefecture--Akira Onoda’s video footage of his hometown runs 350 hours, but it does not contain a single shot of his favorite scene--the sunrise over the coastal village.

That is because residents can enter Futaba only 15 times a year and only between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.

Futaba co-hosts the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, and four years after disaster struck the facility, most areas of Futaba remain largely off-limits to residents.

When he can, Onoda, a 24-year-old graduate student at Ibaraki University, uses his video camera to capture the deterioration of the uninhibited houses and infrastructure in Futaba.

He has also recorded interviews with about 150 Futaba evacuees at their new homes, from northern Miyagi Prefecture to southern Shimane Prefecture.

“There is a lot to be seen in the current Futaba aside from the footage recorded by the mass media,” Onoda said.

Growing up in Futaba, Onoda only had good memories of the quiet and peaceful town. He once wanted to become a town official to serve the residents.

When he was a sophomore at college, the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami struck on March 11, 2011, triggering the nuclear accident that completely changed the sleepy rural town.

TV news coverage showed his desperate-looking acquaintances furiously criticizing Futaba officials and Tokyo Electric Power Co., the operator of the plant, for bringing misery to the town.

Onoda felt he had lost Futaba.

During a soul-searching period in April 2012, he traveled to Britain on a study program.

But even on the far side of the planet, Onoda always thought of Fukushima. When he took part in a theater play with the nuclear disaster as the theme, an audience member asked him how his hometown has changed since the triple meltdown.

Upon his return to Japan in December that year, Onoda decided to record the conditions of his hometown and his interviews with Futaba evacuees. But the obstacles were high for the documentary production.

All residents were forced to evacuate after the nuclear disaster started. Access is limited for most Futaba areas, which are still designated as “difficult-to-return zones,” with annual radiation doses of 50 millisieverts or more.

Onoda has also had a difficult time accepting the drastic changes in the characters of many of his acquaintances from the town.

One of his neighbors was known for his cheerful personality before the disaster. Onoda said he was surprised to see a new side of the neighbor that was full of resentment and bitterness toward TEPCO.

Onoda also interviewed a neighbor whose son was killed in the tsunami, as well as TEPCO employees assigned to work in highly contaminated areas.

He has already created a 30-minute documentary from footage he recorded before November 2013. It has been shown at disaster-related events in Saitama and Tochigi prefectures.

Onoda plans to produce a sequel from materials he is currently shooting and give away the DVDs to evacuees from Futaba.

“I don’t believe that Futaba can become the peaceful place that it once was before the disaster anytime soon,” Onoda said. “For now, I only hope that it becomes a town that we can freely visit at any moment.”