Atomic Mom Screening & Director Q&A at the Jamestown Arts Center

Atomic Mom, an award-winning feature length documentary (80 min.) by former Newport resident, M.T. Silvia, will screen on the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6th, 8:00pm at the Jamestown Arts Center 18 Valley Street, Jamestown, R.I. ($10 donation at the door). Atomic Mom was an award winner at the 2011 Rhode Island International Film Festival, which provides technical support to the JAC. The filmmaker will attend and participate in a post-screening discussion.

Atomic Mom weaves an intimate portrait of a complex mother-daughter relationship within an obscure – but important – moment in American history.

As one of the only female scientists present during atomic detonations in the Nevada desert, Pauline Silvia undergoes a crisis of conscience. After a long silence and prompted by her filmmaker daughter M.T. Silvia, she finally reveals grim secrets of working in the U.S. atomic testing program.

In our present moment of Wikileaks, Pauline is a similar whistle-blower having been cowed by the silencing machine of the US military for decades. In an attempt to reconcile with her own mother’s past, M.T. Silvia meets Emiko Okada, a Hiroshima survivor trying to reconcile her own history in Japan. The film follows these survivors, each on a different end of atomic warfare, as they “meet” through the filmmaking process and, with startling honestly, attempt to understand each other.

As Japan experiences its second nuclear crisis, Atomic Mom illustrates how we are all downwind of this story.

Atomic Mom invites viewers to confront American nuclear history in a completely new way and will inspire dialogue about human rights, personal responsibility, and the possibility – and hope – of peace.

Pauline Silvia is a Newport Native, graduate of Salve Regina University and long-time nursing instructor at Newport Hospital. Her daughter, M.T. Silvia is a graduate of Rogers High School.

More info at http://www.atomicmom.org/ and www.jamestownartcenter.org.

M.T. Silvia is an independent filmmaker. Her first documentary Picardy Drive (2002, Documentary, 57min) aired on KQED’s ImageMaker series, FreeSpeechTV and airs yearly during the holidays on Oakland’s KTOP. She has worked professionally in the film industry for over twenty years at both Skywalker Sound and Pixar Animation Studios. Among many mainstream film and CD credits, she has also worked on several independent films.