Synopsis
- April 26th 1986. The day the inconceivable happened and a nightmare scenario became horrific reality: the day reactor block 4 of the Chernobyl atomic power station exploded. In their attempts to contain the disaster, Russian fire fighters were exposed to multiple deadly doses of radioactivity. Three weeks later almost all of them were dead. Very little information about the true extent of the radioactive contamination managed to find its way out to the public. The early summer heat, insufficient security measures and lack of knowledge and training exposed the emergency workers to extreme risk. One of them was the young artist Dmitrij Gutin. During the last days of his military service he was posted to the highly contaminated 30 km. zone around Chernobyl to work on the construction of a railway line. He died just short of his 40th birthday, after many painful years of suffering the effects of radiation poisoning. Filmmaker Christoph Boekel spent many years living and working in what is now the Russian Federation. While researching and filming this project he met numerous victims of the atomic catastrophe. His own wife was one them and she, too, died of cancer. It is the fate of these individuals that he documents. A vivid, moving film told from the personal perspective of the director, it is a requiem for the often forgotten victims of the disaster and a caveat against putting blind trust in technological advancement.
Crew
- Director: Christoph Boekel
- Director of photography: Anatolij Rudakow
- Editor (Cut): Thomas Balkenhol
- Production company: BAUM-FILM GmbH
Awards
- (2006) Main Award of the Marshal of Podlasie Voivodship. The 4th Waga Brothers International Festival of Nature Films 2006, Rajgród, Poland
- (2006) Main Award of the Mayor and the Local Administration of the City of Saratov. Saratov Sufferings 2006 – The 3rd International Documentary Drama Film Festival, Saratov, Russia
- (2006) Prize of the Ministry of Defence of the Slovak Republic. EKOTOPFILM 2006, Bratislava, Slovakia
- (2007) UNDPI GOLD Award (United Nations Department of Public Information). The New York Festivals, USA
- (2007) Bronze World Medal (Cat: Environment & Ecology). The New York Festivals, USA
- (2007) Special Prize in the categorie 'Man And His Environment', FESTROIA 2007, Festival Internacional de Cinema, Portugal
- (2007) Platinum Remi Award, The Houston International Film Festival 2007, USA
- (2008) Audience Award, 5th Human Rights Documentary Days - International Film Festival, Kiew, Ukraine
- (2007) Bronze Award. Stories from the Field – The Third Annual United Nations Documentary Film Festival, New York, USA
- (2007) Award For Best Use Of Footage in a Science or Natural History Production, FOCAL INTERNATIONAL AWARDS 2007, London, UK
- (2007) A-Prize for the best journalistic film, ENVIROFILM 2007, Banska Bystrica, Slovakia
