Ryuichi Hirokawa: Human Battlefield

Ryuichi Hirokawa is a human being first, a photojournalist second. He considers journalism the right to know, and relief work the right to live - two things that have informed his character and career. Recently retired from Days Japan magazine as editor-in-chief, the septuagenarian goes back into the field and revisits the sites and stories of his past. He returns to Israel and Palestine, and remembers a Lebanese refugee camp massacre - images burned into his brain that sent shockwaves around the world. Then he travels back to Chernobyl, where he was the first Western journalist allowed to enter the no-go zone after the nuclear disaster. But all roads lead home, where his focus now rests on fundraising in the wake of Fukushima. Ryuichi Hirokawa: Human Battlefield is a reverential character portrait that ruminates on the man behind the camera and whether the purpose of journalism is to record things that happen or to stop them from happening. (Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival)