Documentary, debuting at Slamdance in Park City, criticizes U.S. government’s neglect of people suffering from radiation.
Among the charges the film makes is that the U.S. government didn’t warn people in so-called “low-use” populations in the affected areas of the dangers. One particular underground test at the site, “Boxcar,” had the equivalent yield of 65 Hiroshima bombs, the film says, and U.S. residents experienced 2.5 times more radiation exposure than those at the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in what was then the Soviet Union and is now Ukraine, according to the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation.
In “Downwind,” the filmmakers interviewed Mark Sennet, one of the writers of that People article — which explored the idea that the U.S. government had, indirectly, killed John Wayne, one of America’s most patriotic and iconic figures. Though its focus is on the everyday people who have dealt with radioactive fallout, “Downwind,” like the People article, will attract some attention because of the celebrity factor.
Shapiro said his sister died of carcinoma in 2016. While editing and shooting, Miller said, his dad died of lymphoma. His aunt had pancreatic cancer, his mother had breast cancer twice and his grandparents had forms of cancer, too.