[KineJapan] Atomic Bowl now streaming

[quentin turnour]

 Thanks so much Markus. 
I can't think of another English language film which specifically addresses the unique issues of the Nagasaki bomb, nor plugs what was unique about it as an act of state violence into contemporary concerns about weapons proliferation and the targeting of civilians. And whilst the tragedy of Urakami's Catholic is alluded to in The Bomb's written scholarship, it isn't popularly known in the west, not understood as critical to Nagasaki's experience.
That what happened was something different from Hiroshima (and perhaps also from the experience of the fire bombing memorial at Yokoamichō Park) is intensely felt by any visitor to the Nagasaki hypocentre, the rebuilt cathedral on the next hill, and the Peace Museum below. Those sites' role as a place of pilgrimage for Japanese school children (especially, those from Catholics schools), and from world wide religious communities gives it a different poignancy.
I wasn't expecting it in this context, but to reference Japanese films about Nagasaki in contrast to the indifference of Hollywood would have been a nice treat. I kept thinking about Yamada Yoji's use of Kyushu's Catholic heritage in films like KAZOKU. And the obliteration of Nagasaki catholic society is of course, central to his 2015  HAHA TO KURASEBA.
There is a brief mention near the end of the films of a later soccer match between 'British' teams on the Nagasaki No.2 field, originally meant to be played as a rugby game. 
Maybe not British? Click on this search return link to the Australian War Memorial's database [ https://www.awm.gov.au/advanced-search?query=football&collection=true&facet_type=Photograph&facet_related_conflict_sort=11%3ABritish%20Commonwealth%20Occupation%20Force%2C%201946-1952%20%28Japan%29 and you'll see extensive photographic coverage of the sporting sub-culture that proliferated around the British Commonwealth Occupation Force contingent when it took over from US troops, and took charge at the Kure naval base just outside of Hiroshima in 1947. 
Kure was later and well down the road from the Hiroshima hypocentre. So it lacks quite the callousness of the Nagasaki No.2 field game. But through the 1947-1955 years of the BCOF-then Korean War mission there were plenty of Australian Rules, Rugby League and Rugby Union leagues and athletics carnivals held on the playing fields of Kure and Iwakuni air base. And US personnel continued to play baseball and American football there, as some photos show. The AWM also has plenty of Kure sporting event paper memorabilia in its collection, similar to that depicted in Mitchell's film.
The rugby union rivalry was especially intense between Australian and New Zealand teams. Although Australian rugby teams had toured (and lost) in Japan in the early 1930s (about the time Shimuzu made his 1933 college rugby romp DAIGAKU NO WAKADANNA) the game's Australian administrators saw the competition as an opportunity to promote the sport in Japan [ http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article230740105]. The AWM has home movie footage on-line at the 1948 Duntroon Cup between them: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C190576
One other takeaway: this is the sort of television-making and message that will be suppressed if PBS gets defunded. 

Quentin Turnour,National Archives of Australia.


     On Sunday, 13 July 2025 at 05:17:16 am AEST, Markus Nornes via KineJapan <kinejapan at mailman.yale.edu> wrote:  
 
 I should add the film’s homepage, which also has a link to an accompanying e-book. 
Markus

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| “The Atomic Bowl” 2025 – Exposed Filmsgregmitchphoto.com |

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On Jul 12, 2025, at 3:14 PM, Markus Nornes <nornes at umich.edu> wrote:

I was an advisor on a powerful new documentary called Atomic Bowl: Football at Ground Zero. It’s already starting winning prizes at international festivals, and just went online for free streaming at PBS:

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| Atomic Bowl: Football at Ground Zero -- And Nuclear Peril Todaypbs.org |

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Incredibly, this is one of the few films to focus on the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. The director is Greg Mitchell, the foremost journalist of the atomic bombings and director a film from a few years back on the genabaku eiga. 
This film introduces the ghastly and little-known Atomic Bowl, a ghastly new year’s football game the US military staged on the bombed out grounds of a school. (It had to be touch football because there was still too much broken glass in the ground.) It’s a particularly important film for anyone teaching the atomic bombings. Please take a look. 
Markus

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