PRESS RELEASE
No more Hiroshimas film showing at the Curzon Soho
31st July 2005, Curzon Soho, London W1, Box Office 020 7734 2255
20 July 2005: for immediate release
To commemorate the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 60 years ago,
the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament has teamed up with Curzon Cinemas
and Contemporary Films to present a number of rarely seen films, together
with a panel session to discuss today’s nuclear dangers.
The harrowing and controversial The War Game, and the end of the world
drama On the Beach, starring Ava Gardner and Fred Astaire, will be shown,
along with two shorts: Booom, a humorous take on the notion that might
is right, and Blosch, a powerful and comprehensive argument for disarmament.
The New Nuclear Threat will be discussed by a panel including Kate Hudson,
Chair of CND, long standing peace campaigner Bruce Kent, representative
of Mayors for Peace and member of the GLA Jenny Jones and Jeremy Corbyn
MP.
Kate Hudson, Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,
“It is important that we mark the 60th anniversary by helping to
bring about a real understanding of the horror of the nuclear bomb and
the continued danger to the world of the nuclear weapons held by all of
the nuclear weapon states, including the UK. It is also vital that we
challenge both the perception that it was necessary to drop the bomb on
Japan and the idea that it would ever be necessary or justified to use
it anywhere, ever again.”
Ends
Notes to Editor:
1. For further information and interviews please contact Ruth Tanner
CND's Press & Communications Officer on 0207 7002350 or 07968 420859
2. For more information about Curzon Cinemas, www.curzoncinemas.com
or to get logos and pictures sent to you contact Shelley McCarten 020
7292 1692 (shelley.mccarten@curzoncinemas.com).
3. For more information about Contemporary Films www.contemporaryfilms.com/
Film synopsis and order of play
12PM BOOOM: An animated film that takes a humorous peep
at a very serious subject: the giant global arms race. BOOOM is a history
of aggression, and the theory that might makes right. By extension it
carries us into the atomic and missile age, postulating various scenarios
for planetary self-destruction, both planned and accidental. Without narration,
using only sound-effects and music, the film asks the question: is this
THE END?
12.15PM: THE WAR GAME Director: Peter Watkins. Starring:
Michael Aspel, Dick Graham (commentators). UK 1966. 48mins. Intended for
broadcast in 1965, writer/director Peter Watkins' nuclear war drama was
withheld by the BBC - possibly as a result of political pressure - and
remained untelevised for nearly twenty years, finally being transmitted
on 31st July 1985.
Continuing the experiments in blending fiction and documentary techniques,
Watkins presented data drawn from his detailed research - encompassing
interviews, Civil Defence documents, scientific studies and accounts of
the effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki blasts and the non-nuclear devastation
of Dresden, Hamburg and other cities during World War II - in the form
of charts, quotes and vox-pop style face-to-face interviews with ordinary
people. These he embedded into his own imagined scenario of the impact
of a blast in Kent following the escalation of an East-West conflict.
The result was a controversial and harrowing film which, after the BBC
had reluctantly allowed a cinema release (distributed by the British Film
Institute), garnered huge critical praise internationally, winning a number
of prizes, including an Academy Award (intriguingly in the Best Documentary
category). The film had a significant influence on the growing Campaign
for Nuclear Disarmament. (Mark Duguid, Screenonline) CND organised hundreds
of screenings around the country in the 1960s and 1970s, and thousands
of people were drawn into anti-nuclear campaigning as a result.
1.05PM Break
1.20PM: BLOSCH Director: Ian Dury A short, and to the
point, film about the threat of nuclear war. A number of well-known personalities
were asked to give their reasons for supporting the World Disarmament
Campaign. The result is a powerful and comprehensive argument for disarmament.
BLOSCH is Ian Dury's description of a nuclear explosion. Other interviewees
include Nigel Hawthorne, Susannah York, Billie Whitelaw and Maureen Lipman.
1.30PM: Panel discussion: The New Nuclear Threat 60
years after the bombing of Hiroshima, the threat of nuclear weapons being
used in war is growing once again. At least eight countries possess nuclear
weapons, all far more powerful than the bombs dropped in 1945.
Led by Kate Hudson of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), the
panel includes Jenny Jones (Green Party) peace activist Bruce Kent and
Jeremy Corbyn MP.
2.20PM Break
2.50PM: ON THE BEACH Director: Stanley Kramer. Starring:
Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, Anthony Perkins.USA 1959. 134
mins. Based on Nevil Shute's acclaimed novel, this end-of-the-world drama
is set in Australia in 1964, after nuclear war has eliminated life in
the northern hemisphere. Produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, this
unremittingly bleak message film remains a powerful, well-acted, deftly
photographed film in the tradition of FAIL SAFE and DR. STRANGELOVE. When
the film went on public release in 1959, many CND groups leafleted outside
cinemas and held public meetings to publicise the issues. Shocked by the
contents of the film, many became active in CND as a result.
17.05 Ends
5. Other Hiroshima anniversary events
6th August - Hiroshima day ceremony - Noon-1pm - Tavistock Square, London
WC1 (Tube: Euston) Speakers, Cllr. Barbara Hughes, Mayor of Camden, Kate
Hudson, CND Chair, Lindsay German, STWC Convenor, Susannah York (invited),Bruce
Kent (invited) Adrian Mitchell (invited), Jeremy Corbyn MP (Chair), Music:
The Workers’ Music Association. Info. 020-7607 2302
For further information on activities and press opportunites across the
country to mark the 60th anniversary go to http://www.cnduk.org/pages/diary.html
CND will be represented at the 60th anniversary international peace conference
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the 2nd – 9th August for further
information contact Ruth Tanner CND's Press & Communications Officer
on 0207 7002350 or 07968 420859
6. CND has been running a Countdown to Hiroshima Campaign to remember
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and say never again. As part of this campaign CND
has also launched a Peace Education Pack, with the support of the Mayor
of London, which has gone to all secondary schools in London. Link to
CND’s Peace education Pack http://www.cnduk.org/pages/ed/edpack.html
7. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is one of Europe’s
biggest single-issue peace campaigns, with over 32,000 members in the
UK. CND campaigns for the abolition of all nuclear weapons everywhere.
www.cnduk.org
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