PAPER CITY

Essential Documentary on Tokyo Firebombings Returns

Venue(s): Stranger
February 28 (Fri) to March 13 (Thu), 2025
Language: English and Japanese with Japanese and English subtitles
Official website: papercityfilm.com/
Theater website: stranger.jp/theater/?anchor=access
Theater website: stranger.jp/movie/5813/
Trailer: https://youtu.be/M7yprcYGhMA
Tariff: General: ￥1,800 / Koto, Sumida/Koto residences, workers, students: ¥1,200 / College students, seniors and members: ￥1,200 / High school and junior high school students or under and members: ￥900.
Advance tickets: stranger.jp/?anchor=screen
Talk event: Visit theater website for details.

Title: ペーパーシティ　東京大空襲の記憶 (Paper City Tokyo Daikushu no Kioku)
Director: Adrian Francis (エイドリアン･フランシス)
Duration: 80 min

Tokyo-based Australian filmmaker Adrian Francis devoted seven years to assuring that the remaining survivors of the Tokyo firebombings on March 10, 1945 would not be forgotten. Expertly weaving together harrowing testimonies, rarely seen archival footage and modern-day advocacy, he created Paper City: Memories of the Tokyo Firebombing in 2022, a film that explores trauma, remembrance and the state’s role as gatekeepers of history. Marking the 80th anniversary of the atrocity, as well as the anniversary of war’s end, the film is being revived with English subtitles in theaters. It is absolutely essential viewing.

If you’ve spent any time in Tokyo or as a student of history, the tragic events of March 10, 1945 are known to you. But too few realize what happened in the aftermath of the most destructive air raid in history.

Paper City revisits the details of the devastating raid, which began just after midnight on March 10, when 279 B-29s flew in and, for nearly 3 hours, bombarded the city with clusters of napalm bomblets that had been specifically engineered to destroy wood-and-paper housing in residential areas by igniting fast-burning fires. The US bombers burned large swathes of eastern Tokyo to the ground, laying waste to a quarter of the capital and killing more than 100,000 people.

In his award-winning film, Francis follows a trio of aging survivors who have spent their lives trying to preserve their experiences of the unprecedented tragedy for future generations. In part, they’ve done this by leading a little-known campaign for recognition and restitution. For 75 years, they actively campaigned for a public memorial, a museum or some token compensation for civilians who lost everything. The government’s reaction to their efforts is sure to shock even the most hardened viewers.

As the director has noted, “Berlin has its Holocaust Memorial and Hiroshima has the Atomic Bomb Dome — places where people come from around the world to learn, mourn and pay their respects. But in Tokyo, where tens of thousands lost their lives in a single night, hardly a trace remains, and rarely does anyone even talk about it.”

In announcing the screenings in 2025, he said, “Regrettably, our film's subject is more relevant now than we could've imagined when we made it. As we've seen over the past year in Gaza, the targeting of civilians in conflict, and children in particular, is not something confined to the past—it continues unabated.”

Stranger