L’ÎLE INVISIBLE 見えない島
A documentary film by Keïko Courdy
Fukushima. In search of the spirit of the zone.
A story of nature, men, women, resilience, and failing technology. Decontamination workers of the power plant open their daily lives to the camera. Waves crash eternally on the shore of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Next to a white facility for radioactive waste burning, children play on the ground, black bags of contaminated soil pile up, while grass grows wild over them. Keïko Courdy has been filming every year since 2011, developing a relationship of trust, revealing the hidden traumas, and the secret life of nuclear workers in this parallel world, an invisible island.
Winner of the Best Feature Documentary Award at the 2021 Uranium Film Festival, the film is a story of resilience, failed technology, and the transformation of a territory. In Japan, the government wishes to forget and go forward, but the traces can not be erased that easily.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A and discussion with the director, moderated by Benedetta Lomi (University of Bristol) and Élise Domenach (Ecole Normale Supérieure Lyon).
2021 – 16/9 – HD – Colour – 1h27min. Japanese (subtitles English -French)
Tickets Reservation:
This event is free, thanks to the generous support of the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, but booking is required. Tickets can be claimed via Headfirst, by clicking here.
About the director:
Keïko Courdy is a French filmmaker and media artist. She writes, directs and produces films, and new media installations, in France and Japan.
Doctor of the University of Tokyo, after studying film and theatre at the University of Paris Sorbonne Nouvelle, she taught media performances for 3 years at Kyoto University of Arts and Design and led Onomatopia company in Tokyo and KI transdisciplinary creative structure in Paris.Overwhelmed by the Fukushima disaster, she directed the film and webdocumentary BEYOND THE CLOUD ° Yonaoshi 3.11. She is currently preparing a new documentary on the power plant and its workers, as well as a fiction film happening also in Fukushima.
For over 15 years, she regularly worked as a freelance for Japanese TV NHK and FUJI. She also staged events for major brands with Japanese communications companies Hakuhodo and Asatsu DK.
Staff Credits:
Photography: Keïko Courdy, Quentin Tyberghien, Ophélie Giomataris, Jimmy Kobayashi
Editing: Giuliano Papacchioli
Sound: Luc Martinez
Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto, Seigen Ono
Others: Drone : Ryô Nawa / Color grading : Pauline Le Lay, Vladimir Nassyrkine / Title design : Florian Schönersted
