The Producers
Philippe Carillo – Director
Philippe is a French citizen currently living in the Vanuatu archipelago. He has worked on several major documentary projects from the BBC, 20th Century Fox and French National TV, and has worked on independent film productions as a post-production sound engineer and sound designer.
In 2013 Philippe made his first feature documentary, Inside the Garbage of the World, which won 3 awards. The film, distributed worldwide, provoked a wave of action regarding plastic pollution.
Based in Vanuatu since 2017, Philippe has now made more than 100 short films. In 2022, he decided to finish his feature film about Fukushima, started in 2016, due to the emergency of the situation.
Making The Film
I started thinking about making a film on the Fukushima Disaster after I finished my previous film
Inside the Garbage of the World. In 2014, I met former
Japan Times journalist Yoichi Shimatsu and conducted an interview in Thailand with him. I realized that the matter was much bigger than it seems, and a lot has been hidden both to the Japanese people and to the world.
Ultimately, we went to Japan and did a lot of filming there, I was worried about getting caught by the police as they were watching the whereabouts of filmmakers like me and of course journalist Yoichi. At one point, we came across a dump which, according to Yoichi, was used to collect heavy water; a police car was hiding not too far away. So we felt like we were under continuous scrutiny from the authorities. As a first-timer to Japan, I found it very interesting place, although I was struck by the quietness and secrecy surrounding Sendai and Fukushima.
There are some pieces of information that are not in the film. This includes the measurements that we took of the railroad in Tokyo, where trainloads of Fukushima Debris were sent to be burned. The radiation level in different parts of the railroad and near the island was 4 to 5 times the background level. I have also decided not to include some pieces of information in the film for security reasons. However, the raw interview of each person is available at www.exposurefilmstrust.com.
The production occurred in Thailand, Japan, British Columbia, USA Hawaii, Marshall Islands, Ukraine, Australia, China, and USA California.
There has been endless hand-wringing and finger-pointing following the 2011 Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. But the full effects of the disaster are still shrouded in secrecy, and both TEPCO and the Japanese Government have limited any meaningful analysis of the disaster’s impact on health and the environment. Featuring interviews with scientists and whistle-blowers, this unwavering documentary reveals the political and financial interests at work behind the most severe nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
