- A picture drawn by a Honkawa Elementary school students in Hiroshima in the harrowing year after the atomic bombing of the city.
Film “Pictures from a Hiroshima Schoolyard”
Sunday, Jan. 26, from 3:00 – 5:30 pm
Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara
1535 Santa Barbara Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. (805) 965-4583 www.ussb.org
A reception with Shizumi Shigeto Manale, the film’s producer, will follow. Suggested donation $10
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The documentary film titled “Pictures from a Hiroshima Schoolyard” depicts exchanges between All Souls Unitarian Church in Washington D.C. and Honkawa National Elementary School, currently known as Honkawa Elementary School, which was only about 350 meters west of ground zero.
At the elementary school, about 400 children and about 10 teachers died in the bombing. At the end of 1947, students and others at the elementary school sent paintings to the church as a token of gratitude for giving them stationery.
It subsequently turned out that 48 of the paintings had been kept in the basement of the church since 1995. The film records the discovery of the paintings, their return to the Hiroshima school in 2010 and their exhibitions.
The film was produced by Shizumi Shigeto Manale, a native of Hiroshima who currently resides in the United States. She saw the paintings and started preparations to make the film in 2006. She ran the completed version of the film in Washington D.C. in November 2013.
Preview film at www.hiroshimaschoolyard.com
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The Jan. 26 Screening Sponsors: The Santa Barbara-Toba Japan Sister City Association, Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, A Year Without War