Kizuna: Nikkei Stories from the 2011 Japan Earthquake & Tsunami

It was early in the morning of March 11, 2011, and Midori Suzuki was having trouble sleeping. That same day, the Japanese Mexican Association was to inaugurate an art exhibit called Flor de Maguey that she had organized with some of her fellow painters. After Midori was finally able to fall asleep, a friend called to tell her there had been a massive earthquake in Japan. Still not totally awake, she answered quickly:

“Don’t worry! It’s probably just one of those earthquakes that always happen in Japan,” she said and hung up.

But her daughter woke Midori up ...

On my last day in Minamisanriku, a small group of us from World in Tohoku signed up for a tour of the town’s downtown coastal area, which was decimated by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011.

Until then we had been immersed in brainstorming ways to grow the organizations of a group of dedicated and inspiring social entrepreneurs. They were so positive, and so alive that it was hard to viscerally grasp the scope of the natural disaster that had spawned some of their ventures. I wanted to learn more about the effects of the disaster that ...

I’ve just returned from an eye-opening odyssey to the Tohoku region of Japan with the non-profit social entrepreneurship organization World in Tohoku (WIT). Through WIT I was able to meet some of the people behind the dynamic social ventures formed in the wake of the March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster and learn how they are trying to improve social, environmental, and living conditions in the region.

Located in the northeastern part of Japan, Tohoku is a beautiful region filled with awe-inspiring bays and coastal coves, forests, deep-green mountains and fields, amazing seafood, and warm-hearted people. They’ll ...

I can still remember March 11, 2011, the night of the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent tsunami, which devastated a huge swath of northeast Japan, as if it were last week.

It was just before midnight in Denver when I got an alert on my phone. An earthquake had been reported off the eastern coast of Japan. I turned on CNN and watched in horror for the next couple of hours as the footage came in. I saw the tsunami rolling over farmlands and crash into cities, carrying with it buildings and cars and ships. I saw footage of ...

Read Part 1 >>

When can we expect to see Tohokuno Shingetsu here in Canada?

Hopefully this fall at the Vancouver International Film Festival. We will enter our film in the film festival and hopefully get selected for their programming. That is planned to be the 2016 Canadian premiere.

The reality is…many good films are being made these days all over the world and there is no guarantee that one’s film will be noticed. Sundance Festival had 12,793 film entries this year with only 122 features selected and programmed. The competition is extremely difficult with those kinds of ...