nine degrees north
Why don’t you make movies about us?” We are!
Nine Degrees North serves up a coming-of-age free-fall into the transplanted lives of six high-school teenagers in the year 1969. The story unfolds on the island of Kwajalein, a military test facility in the Pacific ocean, and is set against the music of the sixties. As fifteen-year-old Carrie Conroy and her new friends navigate their isolated surroundings, they experience first loves, loss and the unexpected presence of a military predator, putting them on a fast-track to growing up in a world at war. But when questions arise about the history of Kwajalein and what happens at this military test facility, they are met with radio silence. They befriend their High School History teacher who relates to their thirst for knowledge. He risks his job by secretly taking them to a neighboring island where incredible and shocking horrors of the aftermath from the nuclear testing that befell the Marshallese people are revealed to them. Soon thereafter, their close friend's brother is killed in the Vietnam war which fuels their emotions even more. Believing that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a crisis, do nothing, they bond together and orchestrate a dangerous and perilous protest at the military compound which goes terribly awry and leads to deadly circumstances.
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“I must say that I found it rather enjoyable that you continuously remembered the world that you set up. It was clear that the type of story you were trying to tell was a coming of age, yet serious, tale along the lines of a “Stand By Me”. You tackled a lot of different issues and not just ones that applied to the time period. Things like teenage pregnancy, friendship, love, death, growing up in a different place and on a military base are all things that can either be related to by the audience or are interesting to watch because they themselves have never experienced. The issues you chose to tackle are the types of things that give a story like this depth and don’t underestimate how important that is in this type of story.”
First comes the flash. Then silence. An explosion, brighter than the sun, expands in a split-second into a four-mile-wide fireball. And they called it Bravo. The Marshallese people have endured unthinkable deaths, radiation, nightmarish birth defects, all forms of cancer, and have been exiled from their homes. Americans need to learn our part in this and how unnecessary these devices are.
We destroyed their culture then stole their future. And now, thanks to climate change, Runit Dome in the Marshall Islands is sinking. Over 3.1 million cubic feet of radioactive material and lethal amounts of plutonium from our atomic testing program are stored there creating our own potential Fukushima nuclear disaster.
The film Nine Degrees North will tell their story to the masses so we can all begin to make a difference. In November of 2019 the LA Times published an article on how we betrayed the people of the Marshall Islands. The article ends with Marshallese native, Nerje Joseph, saying “In Los Angeles, you make movies about the Titanic – about people who lost everything.
Why don’t you make movies about us?” We are! Please help us! ~ Nine Degrees North. One of the most important films of our time.