At the beginning of Atomic Mom, the documentary film's three central characters seem to live on three separate planes.
The filmmaker, M.T. Silvia, is a lifelong peace advocate trying to bridge the divide that separated her from her mother, Pauline Silvia, who researched the effects of radiation and atomic thermal energy in Nevada, where the military tested atomic bombs.
Omiko Okada works for peace from her home in Japan, talking and teaching about her experiences as an 8-year-old girl whose life changed forever when her Hiroshima home was blasted by an American atomic bomb.
Atomic Mom was screened Thursday night during the fourth annual Thin Line Film Fest, Texas' only documentary film festival. When the final credits rolled, M.T. Silvia was met with silence from the modest audience. Several in the audience dabbed at tears and cleared their throats as the filmmaker opened the floor for questions.
"This story has always had a life of its own," Silvia said in an interview after the screening. "I started out trying to get my mother to talk about her experiences at the test site and in the laboratory because I wanted to tape them for family history. It was only a few years ago that it turned into a film."
Given the title and the story behind the film, Atomic Mom makes its audience brace for a political treatise about America dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Instead, Silvia's documentary is a soulful story about a mother and daughter reconciled, a retired Navy researcher confronting her tortured conscience, and a bombing survivor offering forgiveness to the researcher and confiding in the filmmaker.
Pauline Silvia was a divorced single mother with two daughters and an aptitude for biology when the Navy recruited her to join a top-secret study of radiation. The film depicts a woman who did her duty, even when that duty induced her to expose dogs to radiation.
It wasn't until decades passed that Pauline Silvia suffered pangs of guilt over her work in the laboratory, working first on rats and then on dogs.
Memories of the animals fueled her torment over the "foot soldiers" who surrounded the test sites in trenches with no protection from the thermal gusts and the radioactive sands, and the scientist turned to the Episcopal Church to heal herself. Pauline Silvia became an oblate, a lay member of the church devoted to religious work.
"Her spiritual journey was what started her talking," M.T. Silvia said. "Her spiritual journey is very, very important in how she's gotten through this. She prays for peace. She is a peace advocate now."
M.T. Silvia works full time for Pixar Animation Studios, best known for the Toy Story movie trilogy. Her work sends her to Japan regularly, and her interest in peace led the filmmaker to the Hiroshima museum and to Okada, who tells the story of a morning when a bomb shone brighter than the sun, and left the people of her city with gruesome burns and shocking illnesses.
M.T. Silvia deliberately avoided footage that depicts burn victims. Instead, she uses scenes in clinics and hospitals, where survivors sit calmly for treatment.
"I didn't want to be in it," M.T. Silvia said. "I went in kicking and screaming. When the film crew started working with my mother, they told me I had to be in it. Then they showed up at my door the next morning with their camera equipment. That was it. I was in it."
The filmmaker's sister declined to be filmed but supported her sister.
Silvia said her documentary has been met with different responses. She's gotten two standing ovations. She's used to audiences being quiet when the lights come up.
A man in the audience asked the filmmaker how her mother is doing. Silvia said her mother is still dedicated to peace but is coping with failing health. There are still things her mother won't talk about.
"When I started working on the film, she gave me all of the pictures of herself with the dogs. Then, she asked for them back," the filmmaker said. "That's still really difficult for her. She destroyed the pictures. I had scanned them for my records, though. My mom has seen the movie, but I took out all the images of the dogs when she watched it. There were just empty frames.
"It's still hard. It still bothers her."
LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877. Her e-mail address is
cbreeding@dentonrc.com.
THIN LINE FILM FEST
When: Continues through Sunday.
Where: The Campus Theatre, 214 E. Hickory St.
On the Web: www.thinlinefilmfest.com
ADMISSION
* Single tickets are $8, or $6 each for students, seniors and military with an ID, and for groups of 25 or more.
* Tickets to tonight's award ceremony and closing reception are $15.
* Admission to panel discussions is $8.
* All-access passes are $40 if purchased today or $15 on Sunday.
HOW TO GET TICKETS AND PASSES
* at the festival box office at the Campus Theatre, which will open two hours before the first screening each day
* through the online box office at www.thinlinefilmfest.com
SCHEDULE
TODAY
Noon - Shorts 1
2:30 p.m. - Shorts 2
5 p.m. - Red Dust and Hypothesis
7 p.m. - "Politics in Docs: Whether You Like It or Not," a panel discussion
8:30 p.m. - This Way of Life
10 p.m. - Closing reception and awards ceremony at the Denton Community Theatre's Black Box Performing Arts Center, 318 E. Hickory St. With music by Monahans and catering by Cafe Du Luxe.
SUNDAY
2 p.m. - Twiga Stars: Tanzania's Soccer Sisters
4 p.m. - God's Square Mile and Our House
6:30 p.m. - Enemies of the People
