Atomic People

“Atomic People marries interviews with a handful of the hibakusha [survivors] – all octogenarians at least, most in their 90s, a few who have marked their centenaries – with contemporary footage of President Harry Truman lauding the Manhattan Project’s achievement and the burnt and blistered bodies in the streets of the Japanese cities to create a deeply moving, quietly devastating film.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Atomic People, an excellent documentary all the more powerful for its sober understatedness, spelt out, via the quiet but harrowing testimonies of hibakusha now in their nineties, not only what happens when a nuclear bomb falls but what happens afterwards, after all that death and wholesale destruction.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Now in their 80s and 90s, their sense of relief at being able to talk openly was palpable. And what stories they had, though many of the details were almost unbearably distressing. Photographs of countless corpses in the aftermath of the A-bombs were truly horrific.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Just as the BBC has produced documentaries featuring the unflinching testimonies of British Holocaust survivors, so it has done a vital thing in preserving the memories of the Hibakusha. They now campaign, including via an address to the United Nations, for nuclear disarmament. An impossible dream, but they want us to know the full reality of what these terrible weapons can do.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Atomic People was a harrowing and heartbreaking film, but one infused with resilience. Above all, this was a timely reminder of the real human cost of war.”
Rachael Sigee, The i