Whanganui Film Society's screening next week is open to the public and comes to Whanganui courtesy of the Goethe Institut.
Fukushima, Mon Amour tells the story of a young German woman who bonds with an elderly Japanese woman during her tour of the Fukushima region in Japan.
Written and directed by German filmmaker Doris Dörrie, the 2016 film has been described as a "refreshingly quirky perspective on a heavy subject" by Variety reviewer Maggie Lee.
"A radiation vacation" – as the protagonist who survived 3/11 calls her brief encounter with a German volunteer – sums up the gallows humour of Dörrie's post-disaster traumedy, shot right in the middle of Fukushima's Exclusion Zone.
"In addition to the more exotic and crowd-pleasing Cherry Blossoms (2008), also about a German traveller trying to overcome personal loss by soaking up foreign culture, Dörrie has set other films in Japan, such as Enlightenment Guaranteed.