HIROSHIMA, March 8 (Reuters) - Teruko Yahata was eight

when she saw a blueish-white light envelop the sky over her home

city of Hiroshima one summer morning, moments before the first

atomic bomb explosion knocked her unconscious and levelled

swathes of the Japanese city.

Now 86, she is eager to be among the first to see the film

"Oppenheimer" at its delayed opening in Japan on March 29,

hoping the biopic of the scientist who led the development of

the bomb will reinvigorate debate over nuclear weapons.

"I don't hold a grudge against Mr Oppenheimer himself or

anything like that. It's a much bigger issue," said Yahata, who

often speaks on behalf of survivors of the nuclear blasts in the

cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War Two.

"I think it's important for the Oppenheimer film to be

screened in Japan, so we can learn from it and not lose that

awareness that we need to preserve a future for our loved ones."

The film about atomic bomb pioneer J. Robert Oppenheimer,

directed by Christopher Nolan, is expected to win numerous

Oscars at next week's Academy Awards, having already grossed

nearly $1 billion since its opening in July 2023.

But Japan was initially left out of plans for the worldwide

screening. The opening in late summer came just weeks before

solemn memorials in Hiroshima and Nagasaki held annually to mark

the bombings that claimed more than 200,000 lives.

Some critics said the film glossed over the human cost in

Japan. And many Japanese were offended by a grassroots marketing

campaign yoking the film to "Barbie," another blockbuster that

opened around the same time, with fan-produced pictures of the

films' stars alongside images of nuclear blasts.

A #NoBarbenheimer hashtag trended online in Japan, prompting

an apology from "Barbie" distributor Warner Bros.

Bitters End, a Japanese distributor of independent films,

eventually picked up "Oppenheimer" and set the opening date of

March 29. Neither Bitters End nor global distributor Universal

Pictures responded to requests for comment.

The only nation to have suffered atomic bombings, Japan has

led global efforts to abolish the weapons. The issue took on

renewed resonance in 2022, with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and

nuclear sabre-rattling by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Yahata, one of a dwindling number of "hibakusha", as

survivors of the nuclear explosion are known, waited until late

in life to give witness to her experience on the morning of Aug.

6, 1945, and the horrors that followed.

She took English lessons to better tell her story to foreign

visitors at the bomb museum and monuments in Hiroshima. She

recounts glimpsing the blast as she stepped into her family's

garden, a moment before its force knocked her back six metres.

"The entire sky flashed and was illuminated in bluish white,

as if the heavens had become a huge fluorescent light," Yahata

has said in her testimony.

Thinking about the process of making the bomb and the

decision to drop it on her home sends shivers down her spine,

Yahata said, but she feels a degree of empathy for Oppenheimer

and his team.

"It must have weighed heavily on their consciences," she

said. "Oppenheimer probably understood better than anyone what a

terrible thing would result from the creation of atomic

weapons."