Downwind

Program Type:

Film, Talk

Age Group:

Teens, Adults
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Event Details

 

Film Screening & Q&A with Mary Dickson

 

Mary Dickson

Salt Lake City-based Mary Dickson is a former KUED-TV (SLC) creative director and an award-winning writer and playwright.  Her play “Exposed” details the impact of nuclear testing on Downwinders. She is an internationally recognized advocate for survivors of nuclear weapon testing.  She was a key part in the effort to make January 27 National Day of Remembrance for Downwinders.  

 

Subtitles will be on for hard of hearing.

 

Downwind

Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Mercury, Nevada? The latter was the site for the testing of 928 nuclear weapons on American soil from 1951 to 1992. The fallout is still lethally impacting Americans today. Martin Sheen narrates this harrowing exposé of the United States' disregard for everyone living... downwind.

  • Genre: Documentary, History

  • Original Language: English

  • Director: Mark Shapiro, Douglas Brian Miller

  • Producer: Mark Shapiro, Warren Pereira

  • Writer: Warren Etheredge, Mark Shapiro

  • Runtime: 1h 34m

  • Distributor: Gravitas Ventures

  • Production Co: Backlot Docs, Cinco Dedos Peliculas

 

Directors' Statement:

"928 full-scale nuclear weapons tests on American soil." That sentence on its own is astonishing.

When we embarked on this journey of discovery, we wanted to understand exactly who was impacted by the detonations at the Nevada Test Site and why, since winds dispersed radioactive fallout from atmospheric blasts (mushroom clouds) and underground testing (venting) in a seemingly unpredictable manner.

We had read in now-declassified documents that the United States government referred to Downwinders as a "low use segment of the population." We were also made aware that the location of the Test Site rests on sacred Western Shoshone land, by treaty. But from 1951-1992, the government restricted the area and conducted large-scale atomic weapons tests that obliterated the environment and exposed people and livestock to deadly fallout. And people are still getting sick to this day.

 

Using a lens metaphor, we initially focused on St. George, Utah, 135 miles east of the Test Site and a city that has experienced tremendously high leukemia and cancer rates. St. George was also the location for a number of Hollywood blockbusters, including the Howard Hughes epic The Conqueror (1956), where half the cast and crew reportedly died of cancer, including John Wayne, who we viewed as a metaphor for Iconic America: brazen, brash -- vulnerable.

As we delved deeper into the topic, zooming out, we discovered that fallout from worldwide nuclear weapons testing was distributed globally -- and also haphazardly.

Despite a moratorium on testing, the Nevada Test Site remains operational and off-limits with the possibility that testing could resume any day.

Our film intends to expose a tragic and largely forgotten chapter of United States history and the ongoing health consequences for Americans, addressing the current state of Downwinders, the hopeful expansion of a government compensation program called the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) -- and the continued tenacity of heroic activists who won't be stopped in their pursuit of government accountability and humanitarian justice.

We are all Downwinders.

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ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:

Mark Shapiro headed Entertainment Brand Management for the animation studio LAIKA from 2007-2019. In addition to studio identity, he also handled marketing endeavors for LAIKA's five Oscar-nominated features: Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, Kubo and the Two Strings and Missing Link. Before LAIKA, he managed several categories for Nike USA Communications including Nike Community Affairs, Nike Basketball and Nike Tennis. He also served as a Mentor in Publicity and Marketing for SxSW Film. Mark sits on the Klamath Film Board of Directors (Oregon) and curates film programming at festivals around the world. A native of Seattle, Mark attended Emerson College in Boston and received his BA (English) from Colorado College. He completed post-graduate education studies at Lewis & Clark College in Portland