Everyday, after March 11th, 2011, there was much information on the television and in the newspapers about the conditions in the disaster area. There were shocking scenes of the tsunami, and scenes showing distressed people waiting in lines, in the falling snow, trying to buy gasoline and food supplies. And in places where there had been buildings, everything had been reduced to rubble. Even if you were far away from the disaster area, anyone seeing these scenes of the conditions in the disaster area would certainly feel great sorrow. However, completely missing from the coverage of the regular news media was the existence of deaf people living in the disaster area. Were they safe? Were they able to get the necessary information, or to receive the necessary aid? There was absolutely nothing about the condition of deaf people in the newspapers or on television. It wasn’t that the media people involved were trying not to convey that information about deaf people. It was just that, in the midst of the tremendous confusion, the condition of deaf people, that even in normal times was not reported on, seemed to be completely invisible.

Eleven days after the disaster, the film director Ayako Imamura left Nagoya and headed toward the disaster area. This was because she was also a director on the cable television station Me-de-Kiku-TV, and was intent on using sign language and captions in order to get information on the plight of deaf people in the disaster area out to the world. She met deaf people at the evacuation shelters who had not been able to hear the tsunami warnings, and knew nothing about the emergency instructions to evacuate to the shelters that were broadcast on loudspeakers. There were deaf people at the shelters who were able to make it to the shelters only because hearing neighbors had told them about the evacuation instructions, and helped them get to the shelters. But there were also deaf people who thought they were safe after the shaking of the earthquake ceased, only to be trapped in their homes when the tsunami came. And even at the evacuation shelters, deaf people had a hard time getting the necessary information, and were always uneasy and full of anxiety, and their exhaustion was clearly visible in their faces.

Actually, in the case of this disaster, the rate of fatalities for people with disabilities was twice that of people without disabilities. It is in fact the case that some people might have survived if they had been able to hear the tsunami warnings and the evacuation instructions over the loudspeakers. Because much of the life-saving information was not accessible to deaf people, many precious lives were lost due to this terrible disparity of information.

And it was not just deaf people who were at a disadvantage, visually-impaired people as well, and people with other physical impairments, and people from other countries who did not have sufficient ability in Japanese, all of these people became information- impaired during the time of the disaster. It is of course usually taken for granted that disaster-related information should be communicated quickly and correctly to everyone. In order to accomplish that objective, however, we first must know and understand the various conditions under which the people in our society are living. This film focuses on the precious lives of various individuals, their fate, and the vital connections that they possess. Just like our mother earth, that under whatever conditions is able to bring forth life in blooming flowers, deaf people in the disaster area were also soon able to look to the heavens and smile as they rebounded and carried on. These people have something like bridges that connect their hearts. No matter how far away these people may be from each other, no matter how different their situations may be, from heart to heart, the belief that there are rainbow-like bridges, connecting the hearts of all of these people, is what gave birth to this documentary.