Hiroshima(Film, 1953)

Hiroshima (ひろしま) is a 1953 Japanese docudrama film directed by Hideo Sekigawa about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and its impact. It tells the story of a group of teachers, their students, and their families in the years after the bomb. The film was based on the eye-witness accounts of the bombing's child survivors compiled by Dr. Arata Osada for the 1951 best-selling book Children Of The A Bomb: Testament Of The Boys And Girls Of Hiroshima (原爆の子, Genbaku no ko). A flashback sequence involved tens of thousands of extras from Hiroshima, many of them survivors, recreating the "hellscape" immediately following the bombing. Produced with the backing of the Japan Teachers Union, the film's "anti-American" stance and graphic content prevented it from gaining a wide release. It fell into obscurity, but has resurfaced in the late 2010s. Many of the cast and crew went on to play important roles in post-war Japanese cinema. ()