Harold Agnew

Steven Okazaki presents a deeply moving look at the painful legacy of the first -- and hopefully last -- uses of nuclear weapons in war. Featuring interviews with fourteen atomic bomb survivors - many who have never spoken publicly before - and four Americans intimately involved in the bombings, White Light/Black Rain provides a detailed exploration of the bombings and their aftermath.

J. Robert Oppenheimer was a national hero, the brilliant scientist who during WWII led the scientific team that created the atomic bomb. But after the bomb brought the war to an end, in spite of his renown and his enormous achievement, America turned on him - humiliated and cast him aside. The question the film asks is, "Why?"

A rare view from within, as several of the Manhattan Project scientists, including Hans Berthe, Robert Serber, Edward Teller, Robert Wilson, and more, speak of their experiences on the path to a terrible shared destiny. As their lives and work at Los Alamos are revealed, they relate stories of contradictions and jealousies, and how each came to terms with the atomic era's most immediate consequence: the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

A documentary composed of historical footage and contemporary interviews from the men and women of Los Alamos, recalling their experiences of the community and the creation of the atomic bomb from the inception of the program in 1943.