Press Release
For Immediate Release
Mayor for Peace to Light Hiroshima Flame while Rogue Valley Peace Choir sings in Hirsohima Peace Park; Visiting Award Winning Filmmaker to Bring Documentary of Nagasaki Bombing Survivor
Hiroshima-Nagasaki 61st Annual Commemoration
Vigil Sunday, August 6, 2006 Ashland Film Premier"The Last Atom Bomb" There will be no charge, but donations at the door are welcome to help defray the cost of arranging this showing . The Ashland Branch of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom will commemorate the US nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug 6, 2006 on the Ashland Plaza. The remembrance of the 260,000 Japanese civilians killed with the first use of atomic weapons in 1945 will begin Sunday August 6th at 8:16 am with the traditional lighting of the Hiroshima flame by Ashland Mayor for Peace, John Morrison. The city of Ashland, a Nuclear Free Zone since 1982, is a member of the international group Mayors for Peace. As of July 21, 2006, membership of Mayors for Peace stood at 1,403 cities in 119 countries and regions. For more information on the national campaign, see www.mayorsforpeace.org The vigil is an opportunity to reflect upon how we choose to respond to the critical challenges of the US nuclear policy, including the emerging uranium economy, corporate war profits and the diversion of resources to nuclearism despite the risks. Petitions and postcards will be available at the vigil to sign and support a nuclear free future.
Filmmaker Robert Richter, right,with Nagasaki bomb survivor, Sakue Shimohira and young activists at the White House in Washington, DC. The story of Nagasaki will be told August 11th in the documentary film “The Last Atomic Bomb” accompanied by award winning filmmaker Robert Richter at the Meese Auditorium, SOU at 7:30 pm. The film interweaves today's nuclear proliferation issue with rarely seen declassified footage and the tragic yet inspirational life of a Nagasaki survivor and college students dedicated to nuclear abolition. 10-year-old Sakue Shimohira wandered the burning wreckage that was Nagasaki after the bomb was dropped. She had hidden in a shelter at ground zero when the bright flash and terrible thunder occurred. The story of filmmaker and subject come together to explore the lies governments tell, the true horror that rained down on a Japanese city 60 years ago, and the much greater horrors the entire planet faces today as nuclear proliferation goes unheeded.
Robert Richter A graduate of Reed College, Richter worked for Oregon public television and was the Oregon reporter for The New York Times. Robert Richter's work has been telecast in prime time on PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC, TBS, Discovery and many major overseas television outlets. His work has been honored with two Academy Award nominations for best documentary short, three duPont-Columbia Broadcast Journalism awards (the Pulitzer Prize of television journalism), National Emmys, Peabody Awards and many film festival prizes. A member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Writers Guild East, National Television Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Societies of Professional and Environmental Journalists, Richter is the last member of the famed Edward R. Murrow-Fred Friendly CBS Reports unit -- featured in the George Clooney "Good Night, and Good Luck" Hollywood film -- still actively producing documentaries. For more information on Richter and his work, visit www.richtervideos.com.. Copies of the DVD will be available for purchase at the screening. For more information on the local commemoration, contact Linda at 541-488-1230 or Mary Lou Lucas 541-482-4266. |
