Grantee | The Film Collaborative (Awarded in January 2025)
Project | Atomic Echoes
“We want people to understand this was a global issue, not just a Japanese issue.” With that simple sentence, Karin Tanabe (USJLP 2019, 2022), a producer behind Atomic Echoes: Untold Stories from WWII, articulates a mission far bigger than a single documentary. Her film, set to air on PBS this August, tells the intertwined stories of American atomic veterans and Japanese survivors whose lives were forever shaped by nuclear war. It's not just a history lesson; it’s a bridge across cultures, generations, and painful silences. At the heart of the project is a belief that healing requires not only remembering your own story, but listening to someone else’s.
Poster art courtesy of Blue Chalk Media
Personal Histories, Shared Purpose
The film’s co-creators came to the project through a mix of personal history and professional commitment. Tanabe, a longtime novelist and journalist with a career built on telling underreported stories, had deep ties to Japan: “My dad was born in Yokohama in 1943,” she explains. “And my great-great uncle was the first president of Hiroshima University.” Her collaborator, novelist and poet Victoria Kelly, is the granddaughter of an American atomic veteran. A medic, he arrived in Nagasaki 45 days after the atomic bomb was dropped.
What emerged from their collaboration, working also with production company Blue Chalk Media, was Atomic Echoes, a film that focuses on American atomic veterans whose experiences with radiation exposure, illness, and government-enforced silence have often been pushed to the margins. On one side of the Pacific, American servicemembers stationed in postwar Japan. On the other, Japanese hibakusha: survivors of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who have lived with trauma for decades. Atomic Echoes brings their stories into dialogue in a powerful way.
Bridging the Pacific
In making Atomic Echoes, the producers set out to challenge a familiar narrative: that nuclear devastation is a Japanese experience, and nuclear power a U.S. responsibility. “We want people to understand this was a global issue, not just a Japanese issue,” Tanabe explains. That reframing is at the heart of the project’s impact.
As the interviews unfolded, it became clear that the stories didn’t reinforce national divisions; they revealed a shared human cost. American veterans spoke of cancer diagnoses, lost comrades, and having to remain silent about what they experienced. (See the image of Veteran Archie Moczygemba. Image by Chris Janjic for Blue Chalk Media.) Japanese survivors reflected on loss, waves of illness, and lives devoted to peace activism. For the producers, hearing these parallel testimonies side by side shifted the emotional center of the film. What emerged wasn’t contradiction, but connection: an unexpected convergence of memory and meaning across borders.
A Grant That Opened Doors
But the journey wasn’t easy. “We had a budget of $500,000. And while most documentaries take several years to make because of the fundraising challenge, we had less than a year to both fundraise and film. I’m really proud that through my efforts, I raised much of our budget,” Tanabe explains.
The early days of the project were marked by rejection, long meetings, and late nights writing grant applications. Before the trailer was cut, the cameras rolled, or PBS picked up the project, there was a critical moment: a small but meaningful grant from the United States-Japan Foundation. “Jake (CEO and President of USJF) wrote us an incredible letter of support, urging others to join in donating to the film.
The USJF grant was the first money we got,” Tanabe recalls. “It bolstered us emotionally and made the project feel possible.”
Other funders soon followed, including the Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation, and the fundraising goal became achievable. Just as importantly, the USJF name helped the filmmakers build trust with interviewees and institutions in Japan, where sensitivity around nuclear issues remains high. “The grant gave us another layer of professionalism and integrity,” she says. “It helped open doors faster.”
Dr. Masao Tomonaga. Image by Chris Janjic for Blue Chalk Media
A Tough Road
Yet, many other challenges remained. In the U.S., only about a dozen of the 67,000 veterans who were assigned to Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the war are still alive today. Tanabe and Kelly hoped to interview half of them, but several dealt with health issues in the year they were filming, no longer able to be a part of the project, making their documentary a true race against time.
In Japan, scheduling had to be done at the last minute, “with many apologies,” Tanabe emphasizes, as they only met their fundraising goal two weeks before they left for Nagasaki and three months before they had to deliver the film to PBS.
Telling stories about nuclear history, especially in a transnational context, means navigating both complex narratives about the past and national pride. The team’s approach, grounded in empathy and cultural sensitivity, helped them build relationships across those lines. “It’s not about blame or analyzing history,” she emphasizes. “It’s about honoring people who lived through something unimaginable, and making sure we don’t let it happen again.”
From Silence to Screen
Now, Atomic Echoes is reaching the public. The film will air nationally on PBS on August 1 and can be viewed on the PBS app until October 1. But the team doesn’t see that as a conclusion. Tanabe envisions the film as a “tool for peace”: something that can be used in classrooms, community centers, and cross-cultural forums. There are screenings scheduled at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., and the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles. She is also preparing a school and university tour in Japan, doing the sort of outreach that USJF is always looking to support. “We want to engage young people,” Tanabe explains, “because they’re the ones who will carry these stories forward.” As they prepare for the next phase – organizing panels, building curriculum materials, possibly translating the film – the team remains grateful for the support that helped get them here. (See the image of Karin Tanabe and Victoria Kelly. Image by Beatrice Becette for Blue Chalk Media.)
In many ways, Atomic Echoes is more than a documentary. It’s a model for how U.S.-Japan understanding can be deepened through storytelling. It’s a reminder that diplomacy doesn’t only happen in government offices; it can happen in editing rooms, in campus auditoriums, and in the quiet moments when people who have lived through this period of history see their story treated with dignity.
The USJF grant didn’t just support a film – it supported a relationship, a conversation, and a legacy. “We want to honor veterans and survivors and talk about the importance of preventing nuclear war,” Tanabe says. “We want to help people see each other.” This is what the grant made possible. Not a finished film, but a conversation that we can push forward.
