Be part of the conversation. The public is invited to join us at the White Rock Branch Library on August 22nd at 6:00 PM for an evening of reflection and conversation. The event will begin with a free viewing of the recent award-winning documentary film “Richland”, followed by a conversation between the filmmaker, Irene Lusztig, and Manhattan Project National Historical Park Superintendent, Wendy Berhman. This event is made possible through a collaboration with Friends of MAPR-LA, Los Alamos Arts Council, and Manhattan Project National Historical Park. 

RICHLAND looks at the city of Richland, Washington which was built by the US government to house the Hanford nuclear site workers who manufactured weapons-grade plutonium for the Manhattan Project. Exploring the area’s pride in its heritage as a nuclear company town and the atomic bomb it helped create, RICHLAND offers a prismatic, placemaking portrait of a community staking its identity and future on its nuclear origin story, presenting a timely examination of the habits of thought that normalize the extraordinary violence of the past. Moving between archival past and observational present, and across encounters with nuclear workers, community members, archeologists, local tribes, and a Japanese granddaughter of atomic bomb survivors, the film blooms into an expansive and lyrical meditation on home, safety, whiteness, land, and deep time.