Hot Docs 2009

Within Japan, kamikaze are revered as self-sacrificing heroes. Internationally, they remain a potent symbol of fanaticism. Until now, few outsiders knew that hundreds of kamikaze actually survived their suicide missions. In rare interviews, these pilots reveal a new image of Japan's fearless bombers-a generation of young men forced to pay for an empire's pride with their lives. In 1945, despite dwindling weapons and fuel, all Japanese war planes were reassigned to kamikaze attacks. Never-before-seen propaganda films and interviews with American veterans of naval carriers destroyed by kamikaze planes reveal the strategy's undeniable futility. But it is the testimony of the surviving kamikaze that conveys the true depth of war's travesty. Sixty years later, these humble men admit to the horrors of the cockpit, how they managed to survive and the accompanying guilt that continues to plague them. Filmmaker Risa Morimoto combines personal accounts with detailed investigation to craft an emotionally charged and timely exposé that probes the responsibilities that a government at war has to its people and its soldiers.