A Review by PAN contributor Steve Bergson:
Fukushima: A Nuclear Nightmare
Director: James Jones with Megumi Iman
Photography: Jean-Louis Schuller
Editing: Rupert Houseman
Music: Uno Helmersson.
Run time: 90 mins. UK Release: In select UK cinemas 20 February 2026. No Cert.
With fortuitous timing, Dogwoof has released in cinemas this documentary from Blast Films about the momentous events in Japan in 2011 when humankind came the closest ever to experiencing a nuclear meltdown. Not only does the topic resonate with current bomb brinksmanship but as the energy gap opens up in a world scared by accelerating climate change, atomic power is increasingly being deployed – often in installations away from population centres that are – like Hinkley Point or Sizewell in the UK – ominously close to the coast. Combine this location with the unlikely chance of a tsunami tidal wave caused by an earthquake at sea and you have the ingredients for a real life disaster movie.
At this site, the Fukushima Daiichi plant, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) had underestimated the possible impact a giant wave could have, so when just such a phenomenon overran the seawall, it managed the unthinkable by disabling the cooling systems of three reactors, causing overheating of the elements and a series of hydrogen explosions. The surge in radiation levels soon threatened the very future of Japan as a habitable terrain. The film directed by James Jones and archive produced by Siobhan Harvey chose to keep the story simple and follow the events in chronological order. It makes for a compelling narrative, even if the outcome is of course known. The available footage is very powerful and used with due regard to time and date stamping, even if some of the key shots from inside the plant are understandably used to generic effect. Some looks to have been recreated – such as the extraordinary shot of the monitors in the control room dying as the power first failed across the site – but everything still has the feel of authentic and scrupulously sourced material.
The disturbing footage is illuminated here by testimony from many of the participants like Ikuo Izawa, the supervisor in the control room and engineer Katsuaki Hirano. The captions are in Japanese and English which adds an interesting graphic dimension to the free floating “lower third” captions but interviewees also include Americans, Carl Pilliterri who was present on the fateful day, the 11th March 2011, Martin Fackler, a journalist who reported from on the spot the enveloping disaster and Dr. Charles A. Casto, an authority on nuclear safety who was sent out to Japan to lead a team to help handle the disaster. The interviews are enthralling, conveying in particular the sense of shame of the Japanese workers who even after eventually averting the meltdown often at huge personal cost, were hailed as heroes. They certainly felt anything but, having participated in a bad setup that altogether lacked a realistic risk assessment.
Before launching into the day by day analysis of the succession of events that created the chain reaction, the film covers the earlier history of nuclear activity in Japan, because you simply cannot ignore the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 as a prelude to the 1955 welcome to the peacetime potential emphasised by the ‘Atoms for Peace’ exhibition. Clips from films produced to allay any fears of the technology the Japanese might very understandably have had add an ironic underscore to the footage of the development in 1967 of the plant.
Emmy award winning archive producer, Siobhan Harvey steered the remarkable collation of footage for the documentary. James Jones’ direction, aided by co-director Megumi Iman and editor Rupert Houseman tells the story with increasing urgency, all driven by Uno Helmersson’s atmospheric score. There is some compromise about the literal dating of all the shots we see in the chronology but in avoiding drama reconstructions, the grittiness of the coverage of the unfolding disaster just comes across as impressive archive story construction from multiple sources not all accessible at the time of the breaking news at the time. When adroitly mixed with the first-hand accounts by those who were in the often radioactive room, the film manages a rare feat. It gives the audience a gripping story which relays events it might have felt it knew but increasingly realises as it watches, just how little appreciation – until now – it had of the stupidity of the initial setup and the subsequent heroism of the participants who saved the day.