Remembering Shigeaki Mori: Paper Lanterns Comes to New Orleans

July 22, 2026

Some stories take decades to surface, and even longer to be properly honored. Paper Lanterns, the 2016 documentary from director Barry Frechette, tells one of them. The film spent five years in production uncovering a little known fact from the Hiroshima bombing: twelve American airmen, shot down during a bombing raid, were among the casualties that day.


At the center of that story is Shigeaki Mori, himself a survivor of the bombing, who spent 35 years researching and identifying those twelve American POWs so their fates would not be forgotten. His work ensured their names were eventually added to the Hiroshima Peace Museum, giving their families in the United States the answers they had waited decades to receive. Mori passed away on March 14, 2026 at the age of 88, leaving behind a legacy built on remembrance, reconciliation, and peace.



That legacy continues to resonate. Paper Lanterns was screened as recently as this year at the United Nations in Geneva, nearly a decade after its release, a sign of how much the film still has to offer audiences unfamiliar with Mori's work.


NAJAS is bringing that story to New Orleans as well. Attendees of the July 29 opening reception will have the opportunity to see the hour long film in its New Orleans debut at the Lapis Center for the Arts at NOMA. NAJAS is grateful to producer Nobuko Saito Cleary and Larry Greenwood, both of the Japan Society of New Orleans, along with director Barry Frechette, for making this special screening possible.


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