No Man's Zone

The disaster at the 40-year-old nuclear plant on the coast near Fukushima, Japan took place on March 11, 2011. Within 24 hours, the authorities ordered the evacuation of the area within a 12-mile radius area from the plant. Toshi Fujiwara traveled through this no man's zone and the surrounding area, which people didn't leave despite the elevated levels of radiation. Just 40 days after the disaster, he meets people who still have to be evacuated, and others who have no choice but to keep living near the nuclear plant. There's the farmer with empty stables, and the elderly couple who have to rebuild their destroyed home with their own hands. He hears stories about a dead family member whose body lay in the open air for 75 days because nobody dared enter the area, and about a farmer who lived unprotected for two months in a place where the radiation was three times as high as in the evacuated area. "The parliament is taking us for fools," he says. Fujiwara recorded the echoes of the enormous destruction that never made the news. According to the voice-over, "We've become addicted to images of destruction, but when there are no images at all, the situation becomes even more disastrous."