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Free
Black Rain © Hayashibara Group Imamura Production

The Japan Foundation, Sydney & ACMI present

Black Rain

黒い雨

Shohei Imamura | Japan | 1989 | PG
Film

This event has ended and tickets are no longer available.

When

Sun 3 Nov 2024

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The tragic fate of a community contaminated by prejudice.

Based on the novel by Masuji Ibuse, Imamura's monochrome masterpiece chronicles the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and its devastating effect on a surviving family. Five years after getting caught in black rain following the blast, Yasuko lives with her uncle and aunt in Fukuyama. But despite her family’s best efforts to help Yasuko get married, she struggles to find a suitor, as the prospects become deterred by her status as a radiation victim.

Black Rain marks a departure from Imamura’s most-travelled themes, as he chooses to depict the full horror of the war and its lasting consequences. However, instead of simplistic anti-nuclear rhetoric, Imamura delves into the psychological scars etched by the warfare, unveiling the survivors’ internal battles as they grapple with their sense of self-worth marred by radiation's invisible threat. Haunting and deeply moving, this must-watch film tells the important stories of those whose lives were tainted by the indelible physical and social stigma left by nuclear fallout.

It must have taken no small amount of courage for Imamura to make this film, which carries an insight many Japanese may not want to heed and many foreigners may not be able to believe.

Roger Ebert, film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times (1990)

Format: 35mm, BW
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Source: ©Hayashibara Group Imamura Production
Courtesy: ©Hayashibara Group Imamura Production
Runtime: 123

Event duration

123 mins

Rating

PG

(Adult concepts) Content warning: Contains mature themes, blood and gore, violence, verbal references to sex

Tickets

FREE (registration required)

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Where

Cinema 1, Level 2

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