On Saturday, August 6th, the 66th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, CRS presented the first Film+Video Show & Tell.
We screened “Into Eternity” by Danish filmmaker Michael Madsen with guest speaker Professor Chris Williams at Pace University. The movie was a documentary about a nuclear waste facility called Onkalo (hiding place in Finish) that is still being built in Finland.
Our 30 seats were sold out on the day before the screening and 6 more people showed up on the night of the screening. The popularity showed that a lot of people had a keen interest about the subject especially after Fukushima nuclear plant incident.
The documentary was comprised of stunning visuals showed the director’s conceptual art background, but also included relevant interviews that kept the viewers informed on the serious subject matter.
After the screening, we had a post-screening discussion with Professor Chris Williams. He is teaching in the Department of Chemical and Physical Science at Pace University and is a longtime environmental activist. He is also the author of recent book Ecology and Socialism – Solution to Capitalist Ecological Crisis.
In his presentation, he talked about a facility similar to Onkalo in Nevada and how the nuclear waste was kept in Indian Point Nuclear Plant on the Hudson River 30 miles a way from New York City. A lot of subjects were discussed in the Q&A session with the audience, such as how the safety issue was often sacrificed for the money and political power games, how a lot of information about nuclear facts were not released by the government, and how the current safety plan did not take into account future uncertainties. Some audience pointed out the frankness of the authorities involved in the project that would not be found in the United States.
We conducted a survey and the results showed that the majority of the audience was pleased by the high quality of the movie choice and the informative post-screening discussion with the guest speaker on a timely subject.
Thank you very much for your presence.