Half Life: a parable for the nuclear age, and other off-air recordings

Half Life: a parable for the nuclear age, a 1985 Australian documentary film, concerning the American Castle Bravo nuclear testing at the Marshall Islands in 1954 and the impact of testing on islanders.

History of nuclear tests and displacement of islanders from their homes on Marshall Islands and Bikini Atoll for use as a testing ground. Includes archive and contemporary footage of island inhabitants, including footage from 1946. Also includes footage of animals being transported to the islands for testing, and footage of blasts. Includes testimonies from survivors of the nuclear tests who were not evacuated prior to tests taking place. Part one ends abruptly mid-interview.

Film also includes declassified US Defense Department footage of the 1954 test. Also includes the statement of Lijon Eknilang before House Interior Committee on Public Lands and National Parks, Washington, D.C., March 14, 1985.

After 1:22:00, includes a number of off-air recordings, including Tahiti Witness about the results of testing, with survivor interviews; part of a nuclear documentary about nuclear power, following an emergency exercise to test responses of workers to potential nuclear meltdown; and a French documentary about Polynesian nuclear test victims, Avoiding Amrageddon, a simulated nuclear crisis between superpowers, 1987.

1985

1 videocassette (3 hrs, 57 min, 29 sec) Good quality; off-air