THE JOURNEY Parts 9-12

ABOUT THE FILM:

“THE JOURNEY was born directly out of a collapsed project in 1982, when I tried to organize another antinuclear war film, to be funded by Central TV in England, and working with a number of peace groups across the UK. I felt that THE WAR GAME was out-of-date, and I was concerned about the escalating nuclear arms race, that was allied to the US foreign policy of a nuclear war that would be limited to Europe. My idea was to create a series of scenes, again depicting the consequences of a nuclear attack on Britain, on a larger scale than THE WAR GAME, that would allow citizens across Britain to express their concerns via their involvement in the production of this project. However, Central TV withdrew its funding, on the grounds that the budget was becoming too large, and the project collapsed. After rethinking the scale of the project into a more global film dealing with the general silence on the burgeoning nuclear arms race, I appealed for funding to a number of international TV channels. Without exception, every TV channel that I contacted refused, even though I was only requesting support for filming an ultra low-cost segment in each country, where I would ask local people what they knew and felt about the world arms race.

“During the time while I had no funding from the professional sector, I happened to be showing THE WAR GAME to the world’s oldest peace movement association, the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society (SPAS), in Stockholm. In May 1983, during its 100th anniversary congress, SPAS unanimously decided to support fund-raising for a new film about the nuclear threat. Based in Stockholm, and with initial funding from SPAS, I immediately began to involve the network of friends and acquaintances that I had acquired over many years of travelling and lecturing, to build an international fund-raising drive for the new film, and to start research in those parts of the world where I would organize local productions groups for the actual filming.

“The film’s core concept started to emerge: I would visit families or groups of people in various countries, and interview them to find out what they knew about the state and consequences of the world arms race, and the effects of nuclear weapons. The interviews would also focus on the role that mass media and educational systems played in shaping a world view, and on the knowledge that these people had – or did not have – vis-à-vis these subjects.” – Peter Watkins

FORMAT: DCP

COUNTRY: New Zealand/Australia/Canada/Denmark/Finland/Italy/Japan/Sweden/UK/Germany