EPE Live: 'Sadako and the Magic of Paper Cranes' Feature Pre

EPE101: Three-time Academy Award and 16-time Emmy Winning Writer/Director Malcolm Clarke was contracted by Evolving Pictures Entertainment at the American Film Market (AFM) to helm‘Sadako and the Magic of Paper Cranes’.

This Animated Motion Picture is based on the true story, and it chronicles the events of a group of fifth graders who in Albuquerque, New Mexico when inspired by their teacher, make their dream of building a monument come true, to honor the legend and spirit of the young girl Sadako Sasaki. Sadako Sasaki was a Japanese girl who was two years old when the Atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945, near her home by Misasa Bridge in Hiroshima, Japan. Sadako was at home when the explosion occurred, about one mile from Ground Zero.  

On August 3, 1955, Sadako's older brother Masahiro Sasaki, and her best friend Chizuko Hamamoto came to the hospital to visit and cut a golden piece of paper into a square to fold it into a paper crane, in reference to the ancient Japanese story that promises that anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by a crane.

Though she had plenty of free time during her days in the hospital to fold the cranes, she lacked paper. She would use medicine wrappings and whatever else she could scrounge up. This included going to other patients' rooms to ask to use the paper from their get-well presents.

Chizuko would bring paper from school for Sadako to use. During her time in the hospital her condition progressively worsened. Around mid-October her left leg became swollen and turned purple. After her family urged her to eat something, Sadako requested tea on rice and remarked "It's good." Those were her last words. With her family around her, Sadako died on the morning of October 25, 1955 at the age of 12. 

After her death, Sadako's friends and schoolmates published a collection of letters in order to raise funds to build a memorial to her and all of the children who had died from the effects of the atomic bomb. In 1958, a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane was unveiled in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial, also called the Genbaku Dome. At the foot of the statue is a plaque that reads,

          "This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace on Earth."