TEHRAN -- Iranian children’s filmmaker Sirus Hassanpur plans to bridge between the tragedies of the atomic attack on Hiroshima and the chemical attack on the Iranian town of Sardasht during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war in his new work entitled “The Paper Cranes”.
The central storyline of the film is based on “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes”, a non-fiction children’s book written by American author Eleanor Coerr and published in 1977.
“This book tells the story of a girl (Sadako Sasaki) who was at the age of two when Hiroshima was bombed,” Hassanpur told MNA on Saturday.
“At the age of 11, she was diagnosed with leukemia, which developed as a result of the radiation from the atomic bomb,” he added.
Sadako spent her time in a nursing home creating origami cranes in hope of making a thousand of them. She was inspired to do so by the Japanese legend that one who created a thousand origami cranes would then be granted a wish. Her wish was simply to live. However, she managed to fold only 644 cranes before she became too weak to fold any more, and died on the 25th of October 1955 in the morning. Her friends and family helped finish her dream by folding the rest of the cranes.
Hassanpur said that his film would also involve the chemical attack on the Iranian town of Sardasht, an Iranian Kurdish town in West Azarbaijan Province by Iraqi on June 28, 1987.
This was the first time that Saddam Hussein had used such warfare against Iranian civilians. A quarter of Sardasht’s 20,000 population of that time are still suffering from severe illnesses as result of the attack.
“We decided to bridge between the two tragedies in order to promote global peace for children,” Hassanpur stated.
The film will be set in Hiroshima and Sardasht. Hassanpur has recently visited Hiroshima and is planning a trip to Sardasht to complete his field research for the film project, the shooting of which will begin next year.
Naghmeh Samini will write the screenplay for the film, which is to be made by a Japanese producer whose name was not mentioned.
Hassanpur’s previous film “The Pearl” received a UNICEF award at the 26th International Film Festival for Children and Young Adults in Isfahan in October.
MMS/YAW
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