Rhapsody in August is a 1991 Japanese film by Akira Kurosawa based on the novel Nabe no naka by Kiyoko Murata. The story centers on an elderly hibakusha, who lost her husband in the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, caring for her four grandchildren over the summer. She learns of a long-lost brother, Suzujiro, living in Hawaii who wants her to visit him before he dies. American film star Richard Gere appears as Suzujiro's son Clark. The film was selected as the Japanese entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
Rhapsody in August
As a practicing Buddhist, Gere played the role of Clark in Kurosawa's 1991 film. Gere in Italy in October 2007.
Constellation Earth, donated to the Nagasaki Peace Park by sister city St. Paul, Minnesota in 1992 (the year after Rhapsody in August premiered).
Hibakusha is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II.
A hibakusha of Hiroshima, symptomatic nuclear burns; the pattern on her skin is from the kimono she was wearing at the moment of the flash.
Panoramic view of the monument marking the hypocenter, or ground zero, of the atomic bomb explosion over Nagasaki
Citizens of Hiroshima walk by the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, the closest building to Ground Zero not to have collapsed from "Little Boy".
A photograph of Sumiteru Taniguchi's back injuries taken in January 1946 by a U.S. Marine photographer
