The film focuses on four key perspectives of the tragedy – and with each perspective we meet victims who faced significant obstacles and fought to overcome them.
Through these four vantage points, the audience is able to understand the vast ramifications of this large-scale natural disaster – and the battle these real-life heroes fought on behalf of their loved ones and their hometown.
Mar 122012
Mar 072012
Source: Al Jazeera – The Witness
We ask if a code promoting self-preservation in a tsunami could account for one Japanese community’s high survival rate.
Filmmakers: Donald Harding and Ben Harding
The March 2011 tsunami in Japan caused death and devastation on a shocking scale. In one town, however, survival rates were unusually high and hundreds were saved thanks to a different approach to tsunami survival called Tendenko.
Tendenko prioritises individual action and self-preservation – and yet such thinking is anathema to Japanese culture.
As communities begin to rebuild their lives, this film explores one family’s remarkable story of survival and looks at what lessons can be learned from the disaster.
Could Tendenko offer a better solution for the future of both Japan and other tsunami-prone regions?
Al Jazeera talks to Professor Toshitaka Katada, a Japanese disaster management specialist
>Full al Jazeera article by Donald Harding – November 23, 201
Feb 072012
Minami Sanriku: An Archeology of People and Place (an excerpt)
Interviews conducted by Jegan Vincent de Paul and Shun Kanda with the help of Sendai-based film maker and interpreter Takaharu Saito. This interview project is supported by a grant from the d‘Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in Education in collaboration with the Japan 3/11 Initiative.