Heroin addicts, young adults living with HIV and the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are only some of the subjects that have been the focus of documentaries by filmmaker Steven Okazaki.

As an SF State alumnus and Oscar winner, Okazaki, 56, has made more than a dozen documentary films that often concentrate on dark, powerful and heartbreaking topics involving people who have endured unimaginable pain and shown human resilience.

On Sept. 13, Okazaki won his first Emmy in Exceptional Merit in Non-Fiction Filmmaking for his documentary “White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” The category is the Academy of Television Arts and Science’s top award for a TV documentary.

“White Light / Black Rain” is a documentary about the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With an estimated 200,000 survivors still living today, the film focuses on 14 atomic bomb survivors and four Americans closely involved in the tragedies. Okazaki met with 500 Japanese survivors of the bombings, conducted over 100 interviews and then selected interviewees with the clearest memories.

The film is comprised of interviews and illustrations from survivors, in addition to color footage and photos from World War II shot by the U.S. government. Some of the archival footage was banned 25 years after the war and had never been seen.

Okazaki explained that when he won the Emmy, he was reminded of his objective in shooting the film—to move away from statistical arguments and give attention to the tragedies’ human faces.

“I just felt really happy and felt this great feeling of completion,” Okazaki said. “It took 28 years to develop the skill and knowledge and maturity and confidence to make the film, and it felt great that I had fulfilled my own promise to myself to make this film.”

Okazaki was a film major at SF State and graduated in 1976. Four years later, he was helping his sister complete a paper for a class at SF State when he met a group of Hiroshima-Nagasaki survivors who were getting together once a month at San Francisco’s Sumitomo Bank of Japantown to talk about common social and medical problems.

“When I was at that meeting, I looked around and thought, ‘Here are a bunch of nice, sort of mild-mannered people who look like your aunt or uncle, and if they can communicate [the story of Hiroshima and Nagasaki], people who haven’t really heard the story might understand it better.’”

Okazaki said the film made him realize that the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is often a closed topic for many of the victims, some of whom had never talked openly about the bombings. Many faced prejudice from fellow Japanese peers or considered speaking about the bombings shameful.

“People are really afraid of the subject,” Okazaki said. “People don’t want to even consider talking about it in a casual way. They’re afraid of the word ‘Nagasaki’ [so] the dialogue never even starts.”

Jason Cohen, a producer who has known Okazaki for 14 years and worked with him on “White Light / Black Rain” called the documentary stylistically beautiful.

“It’s a landmark of a film,” said Cohen, 36. “Nothing ever like it has been done before...There have been a lot of films done about historical things like the Holocaust and equally powerful, tragic events, but I think this is a film about something that has been overlooked.”

Cohen also said that Okazaki has an admirable, broad range of work, acknowledging his impressive guerrilla filmmaking style and artistic eye.

“I have the utmost respect for him and think he’s one of the most talented filmmakers,” Cohen said. “He did an amazing job of balancing [the sadness] of these stories out to the point where he wasn’t putting too much of his viewpoint in it.”

Okazaki indicated that he is aware of the film’s graphic, often disturbing content in its interviews, illustrations and uncut footage. He said he had to wrestle with the issue of censorship.

“[I knew that I was] potentially showing footage that might make people switch the channel or turn off the TV,” Okazaki said. “On the other hand, it’s not the kind of story that you should make pretty or poetic... I wanted to make it as accessible as possible, as truthful as possible and find a more compelling way or artistic way to present it.”

In 1991, Okazaki won an Oscar for his documentary, “Days of Waiting: The Life and Art of Estele Ishigo.” The film is about a Caucasian woman who refused to be separated from her Japanese American husband during World War II and voluntarily admitted herself to a U.S. internment camp. She then documented her experiences on envelopes, Christmas cards and scraps of paper.

Presently, Okazaki just completed his latest documentary, “The Conscience of Nhem En.” The film is about three survivors from the Tul Sleng Prison where 17,000 Cambodians were imprisoned and killed in the 1970s.