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Tuesday, July 30, 2024
Special Screening Preview: SILENT FALLOUT
Documentary explores the legacy of nuclear war and testing
Posted By Scott Renshaw on July 30, 2024, 9:33 AM
Utah writer and activist Mary Dickson has spent decades exploring the consequences and legacy of U.S. nuclear testing in the American southwest, and the “downwinders” who suffered as a result. Yet through participating in the new documentary Silent Fallout, she realized there was still more she had to learn.
Dickson—whose work includes the downwinders-themed play Exposed—was contacted by Japanese director Hideaki Itô, who came to Salt Lake City and spent five days here working on the film. “When he came back to Salt Lake to show it to a couple of the people he interviewed,” Dickson recalls, “oh my God, I was sobbing. When it finished I just said, ‘I’ve been waiting so long for this.’”
Silent Fallout addresses both the American and Japanese experience of lives changed—and ended—as a result of the nuclear era. But among the less-well-known stories, both to Dickson and generally, was that of Dr. Louise Reiss, a St. Louis-based physician who launched a wide-scale study from 1958-1970 that collected baby teeth to find evidence of strontium-90 contamination. “She ad a group of women ended up collecting almost 300,000 baby teeth from around the country and around the world,” Dickson says. “I thought I knew a lot, but every time I learn something new, it’s like a gut punch.”
While the ever-present fear of nuclear war that many grew up with in the Cold War era may have passed, Dickson notes that there’s a new awareness and interest in these issues, sparked by the success of last year’s Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer. “We’ve never gotten the kind of exposure we got as the result of Oppenheimer. That film opened up so much dialogue,” Dickson says. “I’ve heard from people who said [about the film], ‘They didn’t talk about what happened to people as a result.’ I said, ‘That’s our job.’”
Dickson has traveled extensively over the years to events and commemorations associated with the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as U.S. nuclear testing. She’s also had the opportunity to participate in screenings and Q&A sessions about Silent Fallout already, and she believes that the film has been eye-opening for many viewers. “I was in Washington D.C. [for a screening], and a panel afterward,” Dickson says “People were blown away; they had no idea. A reporter who worked with The Nation and Washington Spectator said, ‘I consider myself well-informed, but I didn’t know about this.’”
Silent Fallout will be showing locally for two screenings—Thursday, Aug. 1, 7 p.m. @ Broadway Centre Cinemas ($15), and Sunday, Aug. 4, 4 p.m. @ The Leonardo Museum (free). Both screenings will also include a Q&A with Dickson and director Hideaki Itô.
Dickson—whose work includes the downwinders-themed play Exposed—was contacted by Japanese director Hideaki Itô, who came to Salt Lake City and spent five days here working on the film. “When he came back to Salt Lake to show it to a couple of the people he interviewed,” Dickson recalls, “oh my God, I was sobbing. When it finished I just said, ‘I’ve been waiting so long for this.’”
Silent Fallout addresses both the American and Japanese experience of lives changed—and ended—as a result of the nuclear era. But among the less-well-known stories, both to Dickson and generally, was that of Dr. Louise Reiss, a St. Louis-based physician who launched a wide-scale study from 1958-1970 that collected baby teeth to find evidence of strontium-90 contamination. “She ad a group of women ended up collecting almost 300,000 baby teeth from around the country and around the world,” Dickson says. “I thought I knew a lot, but every time I learn something new, it’s like a gut punch.”
While the ever-present fear of nuclear war that many grew up with in the Cold War era may have passed, Dickson notes that there’s a new awareness and interest in these issues, sparked by the success of last year’s Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer. “We’ve never gotten the kind of exposure we got as the result of Oppenheimer. That film opened up so much dialogue,” Dickson says. “I’ve heard from people who said [about the film], ‘They didn’t talk about what happened to people as a result.’ I said, ‘That’s our job.’”
Dickson has traveled extensively over the years to events and commemorations associated with the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as U.S. nuclear testing. She’s also had the opportunity to participate in screenings and Q&A sessions about Silent Fallout already, and she believes that the film has been eye-opening for many viewers. “I was in Washington D.C. [for a screening], and a panel afterward,” Dickson says “People were blown away; they had no idea. A reporter who worked with The Nation and Washington Spectator said, ‘I consider myself well-informed, but I didn’t know about this.’”
Silent Fallout will be showing locally for two screenings—Thursday, Aug. 1, 7 p.m. @ Broadway Centre Cinemas ($15), and Sunday, Aug. 4, 4 p.m. @ The Leonardo Museum (free). Both screenings will also include a Q&A with Dickson and director Hideaki Itô.
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