Press kit
Synopsis
Atomic Mom Log Line (word count = 25)
Atomic Mom is a feature-length documentary about two mothers, an American Scientist and a Japanese Survivor, who make peace decades after the bombing of Hiroshima.
Atomic Mom Description (word count = 45)
Atomic Mom Description (word count = 100)
Atomic Mom weaves an intimate portrait of a complex mother-daughter relationship within an obscure moment in American history. Pauline Silvia, the filmmaker’s mother, undergoes a crisis of conscience about her work in the military during the early 1950’s Atomic Testing Program. Pauline becomes a whistle-blower, having been cowed by the silencing of the U.S. military for decades. In reconciling her own mother’s past, her daughter, filmmaker M.T. Silvia, meets Emiko Okada, a Hiroshima survivor, resolving her own history in Japan. The film follows these mothers, each on a different end of atomic warfare, as they attempt to understand the other.
Atomic Mom Description (word count = 179)
Atomic Mom weaves an intimate portrait of a complex mother-daughter relationship within an obscure – but important – moment in American history. As the only female scientist present during atomic detonations in the Nevada desert, Pauline Silvia, the filmmaker’s mother, undergoes a crisis of conscience. After a long silence and prompted by her daughter, she finally reveals grim secrets of working in the U.S. atomic testing program.
In our present moment of Wikileaks, Pauline is a similar whistle-blower having been cowed by the silencing machine of the US military for decades. In an attempt to reconcile with her own mother’s past, her daughter, filmmaker M.T. Silvia, meets Emiko Okada, a Hiroshima survivor trying to resolve her own history in Japan. The film follows these survivors, each on a different end of atomic warfare, as they “meet” through the filmmaking process, and as they, with startling honestly, attempt to understand the other.
Atomic Mom invites viewers to confront American nuclear history in a completely new way and will inspire dialogue about human rights, personal responsibility, and the possibility – and hope – of peace.
