The Vow from Hiroshima

Reel and Meal at the New Deal

Reel and Meal is a monthly film series at the New Deal Cafe exploring vital environmental, animal rights, and social justice issues. Admission to the film is always free, sponsored by several Greenbelt community organizations. Contributions are gladly accepted to cover each month’s donation to a non-profit organization.

Reel and Meal events are in-person (limited seating) and online via Zoom. Each month registration links will be posted here. You can also reach out to Reel and Meal at

Date: Third Monday of every month
Time: The free film starts at 7pm.
Dinner: Dinners are available at the café after 4pm with several plant-based options.
Carryout: The Co-Op Supermarket Meatless Monday meals can be picked up from the “grab and go” for Zoom at-home viewing after 11am.
Location: Online or at the New Deal Cafe – 113 Centerway in historic Greenbelt, MD
Public transportation: The cafe is accessible by Metro Buses G12, 13, 14 and 16 from the Greenbelt Metro station.

In THE VOW FROM HIROSHIMA, Bullfrog Films portrays Setsuko Thurlow as a passionate 85-year-old survivor of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. It weaves her own moving story into that of her growing friendship with a second-generation survivor, Mitchie Takeuchi. Setsuko was miraculously pulled out of a fiery building after the bomb was dropped but was unable to save her 27 classmates who were burned to death alive. That experience shaped her life forever. She has tried to keep her pledge made to her friends, that thereafter no one should ever again meet their horrible fate.

Directed by Susan Strickler, the film explores the global dangers of nuclear weapons by showing Setsuko’s campaign with ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) and the peak of her decades of activism as she accepts the 2017 Nobel Peace Awards. An update adds an epilogue about the ratification and enactment of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force last year, January 22, 2021.
Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research will lead the discussion following the film. Over the past twenty years he has conducted many studies on nuclear fuel, nuclear weapons production and testing, and nuclear waste.