As global tensions rise, the unthinkable now seems possible.  The threat of nuclear “weapons of mass destruction” has become frighteningly real.  White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki, looks at the reality of nuclear warfare with first-hand accounts as told by survivors as well as some of the American men who carried out the bombing mission.  Currently, the world has an arsenal large enough to repeat the distruction at Hiroshima 400,000 times over. 

Presented here is a panel discussion which followed the screening of  White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, featuring Director Steven Okazaki; Shigeko Sasamori, who survived the bombing at Hiroshima and was one of the 25 Hiroshima Madens, brought to the U.S. for plastic surgery; Theodore “Dutch” Van Kirk, Navigator of the Enola Gay B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima; Yuki Miyamoto, Professor of Religious Studies at DePaul University whose gradfather and mother were in Hiroshima the day the bomb dropped; and Kennette Benedict, Executive Director of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists who moderated the discussion.

Recorded Tuesday, July 31, 2007 at Gene Siskel Film Center.