As the director of the film “Countdown to Zero,” which examined the risks of nuclear weaponry, Walker was keenly aware of the dangers posed by exposure to radiation. She describes the experience of being in the evacuated zone last spring as not unlike what one might confront after the detonation of a nuclear bomb. But in this case, along with the smell of decomposing bodies, and the sight of a landscape laid to waste, there were magnitude-7 aftershocks to contend with. Coming face to face with so much anguish had the filmmaker contemplating whether to abandon her project and join the aid workers in the process of caring for the wounded, but her instincts as a storyteller took over.
     “I just wanted to drop the camera and help them,” Walker says of the suffering people she found. “And then you have to remember that your way of helping is to use the camera, and the film is the best possible contribution that you could make.”
     The documentary truly is a valuable contribution to the victims, not only in its function of communicating to the rest of the world just how awful the situation was, but also in its capacity to inspire those affected as they continue to recover. And it’s worth noting that a recovery is underway. A year later, with spring again on the horizon, the wounds are far from healed. The road to renewal is still quite long, but just as the trees reliably sprung back to life last year and are poised to do so again, the Japanese people have likewise begun to do so as well.