In 2003, O’Neill’s piece entitled Sadako’s Cranes was selected for the 6th Annual United Nations Association Film Festival.  A brief, powerful film, Sadako’s Cranes was shot when O’Neill was in Japan with her son in 2001 and completed in 2002.  It is the story of Sadako Sasaki who was two years old when the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and died from leukemia, known in Japan as the atom bomb disease, when she was in grade school.  O’Neill had read about how Sadako attempted to fold one thousand origami paper cranes while she was in the hospital so that her wish to be cured would come true and was moved by the story.  She had visited the Hiroshima Peace Park in the 1970’s and seen its Children’s Monument and wanted her son to see it, too, so she returned with him to Hiroshima in August of 2001. 

Selections from the museum’s permanent installations, its special 2001 exhibit on Sadako, its collection of drawings and paintings by A-bomb survivors and its display of peace posters by children, as well as the sculptures and monuments of the Hiroshima Peace Park are all included in Sadako’s Cranes.  The message of the film is the message of the Children’s Monument:

 “This is our cry.  This is our prayer.  Peace in the world.”

Photo Album