Seven years in the making, Oakland filmmaker M.T. Silvia has nearly completed Atomic Mom, an understated rumination on the U.S. nuclear program during WWII examined largely through the experience of two women: Silvia’s mother, a biologist who studied the effects of radiation in Nevada for the Navy, and a Japanese woman who survived the attack on Hiroshima to become a peace activist.

Silvia, with the help of a friend who manages Uptown Oakland’s Picán, will welcome film fans to Picán this Saturday, Feb. 27, for a benefit to raise money to complete the documentary.

The film started as a home movie, Silvia said, when her mother, Pauline Silvia, began to share stories about working as one of the few female biologists at the Nevada Test Site. Silvia was one of the only women scientists doing research on the effects of radiation from the atom bomb during the early 1950s, according to her daughter. She joined the Navy as a biologist and was assigned to the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory in San Francisco where she was sent to the Nevada Test Site and witnessed five of the 11 atomic detonations during “Operation Upshot-Knothole."

Silvia's film includes Japanese testimony and information about the plight of U.S. veterans long after the war ended. Her mother's grief extends to the research she performed on animals, and her interview is underscored by haunting images of lab notebooks describing radiation exposure tests on dogs.

In addition to contributions from Emiko Okada, whose mother died soon after the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, Silvia’s film includes Physicians for Social Responsibility founder Dr. Helen Caldicott, doctors who worked with radiation survivors and Silvia’s own narration and interpretation of the emotional journey.

“It’s an important story to tell. We’re all downwind of the story,” Silvia said. “I think the film is really timely with the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review in May. I’m hoping to get it shown in New York in May.”

Silvia began the film as a personal keepsake, but it quickly turned into a more global endeavor.

“The story started when I wanted to record my mother’s story just for family history. It started getting more and more interesting,” she said. “She wanted to go to the Test Site and see it 50 years after she’d been there. This woman from the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project really wanted to interview my mother because she had very few women scientists. She had like 150 oral histories but none from women. I asked my mom if I could film it and that was the first professional shoot. Then it became a documentary.”

A business trip to Japan gave Silvia an excuse to develop the plot further.

“My day job sent me to Japan for work and I emailed the Hiroshima Peace Museum asking them if I could shoot there,” she said. “I thought I’d juxtapose it with the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, and that was my only intention when I went to Japan. They put me in touch with Tomoko at the Hiroshima Film Commission and she opened all these doors for me. She asked me if I wanted to interview a survivor and I thought, ‘Wow, I didn’t even think about that.’”

Before leaving for Japan, Silvia asked journalist friends for advice on interviewing, and one of them suggested she interview a mother and daughter.

“And that’s when I found Ms. Okada and the whole story went in a completely different direction. It was serendipitous. It had a life of its own, and I just rolled along with it,” Silvia said. 

Another international business trip offered her the chance for more footage.

“I really wanted to interview Helen Caldicott, and I decided to pay to go to DC to shoot, and they said she just left for Australia,” she said. “Then 20 minutes later the same day my work called and asked who I was going to send to Australia (for a project). And I said, ‘Oh, that would be me.’ And then I got to go to Australia to do the shoot.”

Though she hadn’t planned to include Japanese nuclear survivors, Silvia made a strong connection with Okada, who was 8 years old when the bomb fell on Hiroshima. Okada survived her mother, who died soon after, and her sister, who was never found after the blast.

Over the years, Okada moved from silence to campaigning for peace. During one moment captured in the documentary, Okada folds origami peace cranes to give to Pauline Silvia after hearing of her role in developing the weapons.

“The parallel that’s so interesting is all the secrecy,” she said. “My mother and I never talked about it and Ms. Okada and her daughter never talked about it. It’s an effect of Cold War, there was so much secrecy about everything that happened, especially in terms of telling people in the United States about what happened on the ground in Hiroshima. To me it’s a lot about telling the truth and that it’s okay to look at that stuff.”

Throughout her friendship with Okada, Silvia came to see how hard it was to talk openly about painful war stories.

“She didn’t talk about it for years, then she became a docent at the museum,” Silvia said of Okada. “Then she started teaching kids how to fold origami peace cranes. It’s only been in the last 10 years that she’s been talking about it and even had a conversation with her own daughter about it. The women of that age felt they couldn’t say what really happened to them. It’s a global story. There’s so much secrecy around the Cold War and military secrets and it makes me think today about what’s going on that we don’t know about.”

Drawing from the film’s rich archival footage, including food and pop culture from the Cold War era, this weekend's event at Picán will feature music and “atomic cocktails” at the no-host bar. Everyone, including restaurant staff, will donate their time and expertise. All proceeds will go toward the film’s completion.

Silvia will feature clips from the film on screens throughout Picán. She said she still needs about $10,000 to finish Atomic Mom, even before paying for outreach and distribution. While the documentary is considered low budget, it ultimately will cost about $130,000. Licensing the archival footage alone cost $25,000.

Silvia’s planning ahead, with Saturday’s fundraiser as just one part of her strategy.

“I’m looking for folks to do house parties and I’m going to start doing grant writing again. I did get three grants in the process over all the years,” she said. “But I think grant money's drying up and it’s more competitive.”

Silvia’s said she’s excited to share the film-in-progress during Saturday’s event because she wants to inspire people to question the government more directly about wars going on today.

“I read something in the New York Times about the push in Afghanistan right now and they talked about how a bomb went off and it looked like a mushroom cloud,” she said. “I wonder if it was a nuclear weapon, but they didn’t say that. I thought well, ‘What don’t we know here?’ But we don’t ask either. My hope is people will ask their parents what happened and ask their government ‘What are we really doing?’ so we can make educated decisions about it.”

Atomic Mom benefit event
Date: Saturday, February 27, 2010
Time: 1:00pm - 3:30pm
Picán Restaurant, 2295 Broadway @ 23rd St, Oakland, CA 94612
$25 cash at the door, includes food, no host bar

About Irene Nexica

Irene Nexica is a cultural critic focusing on issues of representation in popular culture, and local arts.