Cultural trauma and counter-hegemonic cinema in post-Fukushima Japan

The 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster reshaped Japan’s social and cultural landscape, revealing the fragility of public trust in state institutions and exposing the limits of the national safety narrative. In this context, cinema became a crucial medium for expressing collective trauma and challenging official representations of the crisis. Asahi no Ataru Ie (2013), an independent film directed by Takafumi Ōta and funded through community crowdfunding, serves as a significant cultural response. This study examines how the film represents cultural trauma in post-Fukushima Japan through its visual-narrative structure and symbolic imagery. Using a qualitative descriptive approach with visual and discourse analysis, the research investigates how plot, mise-en-scène, dialogue, and key symbols articulate experiences of loss, displacement, and resistance. The findings show that the film portrays trauma as both an emotional rupture and a critique of state narratives that obscure radioactive danger. Realist cinematography, non-professional actors, and powerful symbols, such as the “white snow” indicating fallout and the “No Nukes” banner, highlight the dissonance between public assurances and lived realities. The study concludes that Asahi no Ataru Iefunctions as a cultural archive and a form of social critique, demonstrating how independent cinema preserves collective memory and confronts hegemonic power after disaster

Collective memory · Cultural hegemony · Hegemony · Historical trauma · Movie theater · Narrative · Symbolic power · Cinema and Media Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration