ATOMIC COVER-UP (link is external)

USA, 2021, Director: Greg Mitchell, Co-Producers: Greg Mitchell (link is external)and Suzanne Mitchell, Documentary, 52 min, English, Portuguese subtitles - The widely-acclaimed 2021 film Atomic Cover-up is the first documentary to explore the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 from the unique perspective, words and startling images of the brave cameramen and directors who risked their lives filming in the irradiated aftermath.  It reveals how this historic footage, created by a Japanese newsreel crew and then an elite U.S. Army team (who shot the only color reels), was seized, classified top secret, and then buried by American officials for decades to hide the full human costs of the bombings as a dangerous nuclear arms race raged. All the while, the producers of the footage made heroic efforts to find and expose their shocking film, to reveal truths of the atomic bombings that might halt nuclear proliferation. Atomic Cover-up represents, at least in part, the film they were not allowed to make, as well as a tribute to documentarians everywhere.

ATOMIC REFUGEE MOMS (link is external)

Japan, 2018, Director Ayumi Nakagawa, Documentary, 65 min, Japanese with English or Portuguese subtitles - There are many evacuees who had been driven into the poverty after the Japanese government cut off the housing subsidies for those who fled their house after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima in March 2011. Kazuko, who fled her house to Tokyo with her two primary school daughters, has to work over the weekend to pay the expensive rent in Tokyo. She is irregularly employed, which means that if she gets sick, it would affect her income. There are still 70,000 evacuees from contaminated area and this is the documentary to address once again, what is the actual revitalization.

Italy/Australia, 2018, Director Lisa Camillo (link is external), Documentary, 84 min, English - When Sardinian-Australian Lisa Camillo, an anthropologist and film director, returns to Sardinia she finds that large chunks of her homeland are devastated by mysterious bombs. On her journey she uncovers secret NATO bombing ranges. Tests with depleted uranium weapons have been having devastating consequences on the local human and animal population. Lisa joins the islanders’ fight to reclaim their land and livelihoods and, in doing so, she is learning about herself and her roots. “Balentes’ is a Sardinian word indicating ‘a man of valour’, who strives for social justice, defending the weak against the oppressors. Sardinians have always been a warrior people, a fact sometimes forgotten, combatting the many invaders landing on their shores over the ages  with courage and valour. Lisa Camillo (link is external) is a passionate human rights driven filmmaker, anthropologist, presenter and writer. She has directed, produced and wrote award-winning documentaries and films that travelled across the world in several international film festivals. http://www.balentesfilm.com (link is external)

CHILDREN OF STRATEGIC TRUST (link is external)

United States, 2011, Director Stacy Libokmeto, Documentary, English, Marshallese, 26 min - When the United States asked to use the Marshall Islands as an atomic testing ground after WWII, they told the islanders it was “for the good of mankind.” In this exchange, the islands were inundated with an average of 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day for 12 years. The American nuclear tests may have ended 70 years ago, but the effects of their legacy lingers in the land and the bodies of the Marshallese themselves. Filmmaker Stacy Libokmeto is half Marshallese, half American who was born under the tall trees of a mid-sized Oregon town. Stacy moved to New York City to pursuit a Master's in News and Documentary at New York University. There she produced her first documentary "Children of Strategic Trust," an idea that started as a promise to herself to one day tell this story for the family who could not. Trailer: https://vimeo.com/19143729 (link is external)

GREEN WARRIORS: Cursed Uranium  (l’Uranium de la colère) (link is external)

France, 2021, Director: Martin Boudot, Producer: Luc Hermann & Paul Moreira, Documentary, English, 50 min - In Niger, near a huge uranium mine, some residents live in areas that exceed the radioactivity of the Chernobyl Prohibited Zone. In the meantime, in France, citizens denounce the pollution of the largest uranium conversion plant in Europe. Despite the bans, a team of journalists, with the help of scientists, investigate in the two countries and take dozens of samples to learn more about the pollution of the uranium that feeds our nuclear power plants. Their findings will be picked up by the media, trigger a political debate and will be used as evidence for citizens in a lawsuit against a multinational company. Trailer: https://javafilms.fr/film/green-warriors-cursed-uranium/ (link is external)

IN THE SHADOW OF THE TUGTUPITE (link is external)

Greenland, 2020, Director & Producer: Inuk Jørgensen, Documentary, Original Language: English & Greenlandic, Subtitles English, 7 min - A cinematic portrait of despair and anxiety towards an unknown future for the Inuit of the world’s largest island. The film questions the rationale behind past and future mining prospects in Greenland and how they are connected to a search for identity for the fledgling nation. Trailer: http://inuks.dk/Tugtupite/ (link is external)

JANUARY 66 (ENERO DEL 66) (link is external)

Spain, 2022, Director & Producer: Jaime García Parra, Fiction/Comedy, Spanish, 14 min - “Enero del 66 pretende ser una comedia, divertida , que nos ayude a crecer y que proponga nuevas perspectivas visuales en el campo almeriense”, ha concluido el cineasta. Trailer: https://selectedfilms.com/enero-del-66/ (link is external)

NAMIBIA, BRASIL (link is external)

Brazil, 2006, Directors: Miguel Silveira and Elias Lopez-Trabada, Fiction, Portuguese, 10 min - A poetic, childlike approach to the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A young Brazilian Namibian tells her father one day after school the story of the girl on the other side of the world who became ill after the nuclear catastrophe that happened there many decades ago. The Japanese girl was only two years old when an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. At the age of twelve, she finally contracted leukemia and was hospitalized. There she folds a total of one thousand origami paper cranes. Miguel Silveira's Columbia College Chicago Undergraduate Thesis Film "Namibia, Brasil" is an award winning short film that screened at more than 35 film festivals world-wide including The Cannes Film Festival. Now, thanks to the Uranium Film Festival, it will be screened for the first time in Brazil. Trailer: http://www.miguelsilveirafilm.com/narrative-work-1 (link is external)

Not to forget (Para não esquecer)

Brazil, 2022, Directed by Gabriel Leal, Production Centeio Filmes, 40 min, Portuguese. Latin America Premiere - Many memories have been lost by those who live two lives, one before and one after the Cesium 137 accident in Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil. Cesium victim Odesson couldn't keep anything from before 1987 apart from his memories. Thinking about preserving the story of the accident, he tells how those days were from his perspective. Gabriel Leal is a 27 years old filmmaker from Goiânia. He graduated in journalism at the Federal University of Ouro Preto. Gabriel is passionate about listening and telling stories.

Austria, 2019, Director Markus Kaiser-Mühlecker, (link is external) 74 min, Documentary, German/English with English subtitles - Austria is the only country which built a fully functional nuclear power plant and after peoples vote against it in 1978 didn't engage it. The film traces the anti-nuclear-movement in Austria, with all aspects of nuclear power in Europe, showing the history and provides an outlook on the future. As meta-theme the activities of the NPO "Atomstopp" are shown, their fight alongside democratic institutions from local government to EU-offices. So the film shows the very multifaceted topic with regards to technology, health, environment, politics and democracy, public movements and energy policy. Filmmaker Markus Kaiser-Mühlecker (link is external) studied film, video and audio at the University of Applied Sciences Salzburg and sociology at the University of Vienna. Since 2005 he has been living and working as a documentary and corporate filmmaker near Linz. „Nuclear free power to the people“ is his second feature length film and received in 2019 the RAGFF Venezia best retro avantgarde documentary feature film award. Trailer: www.kmfilm.at/portfolio/atomlos/ (link is external)

MUSTANGS & RENEGADES (link is external)

USA, 2020, Director & Producer James Anaquad Kleinert, Documentary, English, 127 min - This is the story America’s wild horses tell us about ourselves, globalization, and the ability of a storyteller to persevere, despite being targeted by the most powerful government in the world. In Mustangs & Renegades, filmmaker James Anaquad Kleinert discovers a unique band of wild horses, living free in Disappointment Valley, their natural habitat in Southwestern Colorado. However, Kleinert discovers that the extraction industries have been ignoring and perverting the laws to protect the mustangs, jeopardizing the fate of both wild horses and public lands. Oil and gas fracturing, uranium and other “rare earth” mining, is immanent in Disappointment Valley. Through interviews with the Department of the Interior, politicians, scientists, attorneys, miners, cowboys, Indians, movie & rock stars and innocent people telling of their lives destroyed, Mustangs & Renegades shares a revealing look into the modern day American Wild West. Trailer: https://vimeo.com/313653775 (link is external)

MIYAKO (link is external)

USA/Japna, 2020, Directors: Maria Victoria Sanchez Lara & Ari Beser Producer: Kathleen Sullivan, Documentary & Animation, English 5 min - After 20 years Miyako Jodai returned to the location where she survived the atomic bomb in Nagasaki. Her memories are animated like the Kamishibai story cards she uses to tell her story. Trailer: https://vimeo.com/431257949 (link is external)

Of the Sense of the Whole: The Network of Physicist Hans-Peter Dürr (VOM SINN DES GANZEN) (link is external)

Germany, 2020, Director Claus Biegert, Production Biegertfilm, Music by Zoro Babel, Documentary, 103 min, German / English with Portuguese subtitles - Hans-Peter Dürr, as a physicist he followed the footsteps of the world re-nowned Werner Heisenberg. As a peace activist he was torn between his PhD supervisor Edward Teller and peace Nobel laureate Josef Rotblat, both of them involved in the Manhattan project during World War II. When it became obvious that Hitler would not built an atomic bomb (Wunderwaffe), Rotblat immediately resigned from Los Alamos, Teller stayed and became the "father of the hydrogen bomb". In the early 1950s, the young and naive Hans-Peter from Stuttgart, Germany, stepped into the bomb euphoria in Berkeley, California. It shaped his life. He became a role model for a scientist with responsibility. TRAILER (link is external)

Our Friend the Atom: The Age of Radioactivity (Notre ami l'atome : Un siècle de radioactivité) (link is external)

France, 2020, Directed by Kenichi Watanabe, Production: Kami productions Documetary, English/French, 56 min - The USS Ronald Reagan cruised into a radioactive cloud from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in March 2011. Sailors on the aircraft carrier were exposed to radiation. This documentary looks at the event and what came before it. The film is a historical investigation into the phenomenon of radioactivity. From the Curie spouses to Fukushima, through the history of atomic bombings and nuclear disasters, the film gives meaning to the stories of victims, soldiers and irradiated children, while revealing the lies of the world of the atom. Info/Trailer: www.kamiproductions.fr (link is external)

PHOTOGRAPHY & RADIATION (link is external)

Canada, 2018, Director and Producer: Jesse Andrewartha, Documentary, English, 15 min - Photography & Radiation is a personal journey by visual artist Jesse Andrewartha, who explores the history of the autoradiogram as he creates a new body of work, a series of uranium autoradiograms for the upcoming exhibition “Transmutations: Visualizing Matter | Materializing Vision”. Trailer: https://vimeo.com/253012170 (link is external)

PLAYING WITH URANIUM (link is external)        

Canada, 2020, Director: Daniel Hackborn, Producer: Patrick Borgers, Cinematography by Hannah Joosse, Documentary, English, 10 min - Playing With Uranium looks at the legacy of the Uranium mines that existed in and around Elliot Lake throughout the later half of the 20th century. The mining executives and shareholders made millions of dollars, while the people who call the land of Elliot Lake home, and the Anishinaabe of Serpent River, are left to deal with the millions of tonnes of tailings that have been left scattered throughout the boreal forest in man-made lakes and dugouts. Trailer: https://www.hannahjoosse.com/documentary/uranium (link is external)

OLD URANIUM MINES, ENDLESS RADIATION (BRETAGNE RADIEUSE) (link is external)

France, 2019, Direction Larbi Benchiha, Documentary, 52 min, French/English - Many of us do not know it: More or less 250 uranium mines were explored in France from 1945 to 2001, resulting in 252 million tons of radioactive waste that remain in the ecosystem. Between 1955 and 1984, 42 uranium mines were explored in Brittany. 26 of them are in the department of Morbihan. This uranium mining and extraction produced waste that remains harmful until today. The radiation in the people's backyards are 1,000 to 3,000 times higher than tolerable. Filmmaker Larbi Benchiha (link is external) documents the legacy of uranium mining in Brittany.

ROBOT MONSTER US (link is external)

Canada, 2014, Director & Producer: Lynn Dana Wilton, Animation, no dialogue, 22 seconds - In a battle for supremacy, who will prevail? "Robot Monster Us" is intended to be a succinct comment on how humans wreak such damage to our environment, there's nothing invading giant monsters or robots could do to top it. While nuclear power doesn't emit carbon dioxide in the same manner of fossil fuels, the "smoke" (sand animation) is meant to represent the pollution that frequently goes 'under the radar' such as radiation, the results of mining & refining uranium, and the costs of transporting & sequestering the radioactive waste. Film website Lynn Dana Wilton http://lynnscrowbar.com (link is external)

SEA GYPSIES: THE PLUTONIUM DOME (link is external)

2021, Marshall Islands, Director Nico Edwards, English, 35 min. -︎︎︎︎︎︎︎ I︎︎︎︎︎︎︎n the middle of the pacific ocean, the sailing ship Infinity and her ragtag crew stumble upon one of the most dangerous islands on earth. Birthplace of the hydrogen bomb, this tiny atoll absorbed the nuclear equivalent of 1.5 Hiroshima bombs a day for 12 years. That legacy waits near the beach, in a giant unguarded crumbling concrete dome.

Atomic Test Clean-up Veteran Paul Griego about the film: „I feel it is as great film and so have the other atomic cleanup personnel I have spoken to.“ Trailer: https:// www.seagypsies.com/the-plutonium-dome (link is external)

SKIN DEEP FEAR (PEUR A FLEUR DE PEAU) (link is external)

FRANCE, 2020, Director: FRANCK SANSON, Producer: PRONTOPROD & A2DOCK FILMS, Documentary, Original Language: french, english, japan, Subtitles: english, 55 min - One thing Fukushima in Japan and La Hague in France have in common is the fear of nuclear power. For some, it has turned into a hellish reality, for others, an ever-present disquiet, whether conscious or unconscious. « Skin Deep Fear » is a film born of a personal shock to the author, that of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. The event roused memories long forgotten which once resurfaced, evoked a very real question : does the fear of nuclear exist? Trailer: https://vimeo.com/416679751 (link is external)

SOUTH AFRICA: TOXIC TOWNSHIPS (AFRIQUE DU SUD: TOXIC TOWNSHIPS) (link is external)

France/South Africa, 2018, Director Martin Boudot, 54 min, English - Johannesburg is considered the most uranium-contaminated city in the world. Waste dumps from around 600 abandoned mines sit next to residential communities, blowing polluted dust into homes and contaminating the soil and water supplies. To get a sense of the sheer extent of the problem, Martin Boudot and his team of researchers investigate. Equipped with a Geiger counter, they uncover some dangerous realities. Trailer: vimeo.com/365792453

Stalking Chernobyl (link is external)

Ukraine/USA/Bulgaria/Slovakia, 2020, Director & Producer: Iara Lee, English/Russian /Ukrainian, Subtitles English, Portuguese, 57 min - Stalking Chernobyl, a forthcoming documentary from Cultures of Resistance Films, examines the underground culture of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Three decades after the world's most infamous nuclear disaster, wildlife has returned in the absence of human settlements. Meanwhile, illegal hiking adventurers known as "stalkers," extreme sports aficionados, artists, and tour companies have begun to explore anew the ghostly, post-apocalyptic landscape. Info/trailer: https://culturesofresistancefilms.com (link is external)

TELEVISION EVENT (link is external)

USA, 2020, Director & Producer: Jeff Daniels, Documentary, English, 91 min - THE KID STAYS IN THE PICTURE meets THE ATOMIC CAFE in this archive-based feature documentary that views the dramatic climax of the Cold War through the lens of a commercial television network, as it narrowly succeeds in producing America’s most watched, most controversial made-for-TV-movie, THE DAY AFTER , in 1983. This film addresses a universal challenge - grasping how vast global issues such as climate change, the refugee crisis and in this case nuclear proliferation affect us personally. We have much to learn from how this television network took a subject so terrifying, so unpalatable and turned it into prime-time family viewing. With irreverent humor and sobering apocalyptic vision, this film reveals how a commercial broadcaster seized a moment of unprecedented television viewership, made an emotional connection with an audience of over 100 million and forced an urgent conversation with the US President on his policy towards nuclear proliferation.  Film website: www.televisionevent.com (link is external)

THE BASEMENT (지하실) (link is external)

South Korea Year, 2020, Director: Choi Yang Hyun, Producer: Lee Jieun, Fiction, Korean with English subtitles, 94 min - Pan-Gyo which is Korean Silicon Valley was attacked by Nuclear bomb. The member of family who is owned venture business decided to hide at basement in their house for 2 weeks in accordance with direction from Korean Government. The family was started to struggle to survive in the basement day by day... The film was produced during Covid-19 Pandemic in 2020. This film invokes metaphor for a middle class life when they tried to survive against a risk of extinction such as nuclear attack or pandemic while they were isolated drastically from the outside. Choi Yang Hyun was born in Seoul. He received his BA film directing and Korean literature at university and his MA image engineering at graduate school. His short feature films have been nominated or won in many film festivals. Currently, He is directly managing a film production called Paranoi Future Cinema Lab. "The Basement" is his first full length feature film.

THE GARDEN                  

USA, 2021, Director & Producer Bill McCarthy, Animation, English, 7 min - The Garden is the story of a blind Indian Shaman who begins planting a garden at the gates of a nuclear weapons facility. The Shaman is confronted by the foreman who demands she stop planting. Disregarding his demand, the Shaman continues planting, resulting in a giant garden of sunflowers which overwhelms the staff of the facility and starts covering the nuclear plant.

THE INVISIBLE ISLAND (L'Ile Invisible / 見えない島) (link is external)

France, 2021, Director Keiko Courdy, Producer PIKA PIKA FILMS, Music by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Seigen Ono, Support from KissKissBankers, Documentary, 87 min, Japanese with English / Portuguese subtitles - Waves crash eternally on the shore of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Next to a white facility for radioactive waste burning, black bags of contaminated soil pile up while a family looks for traces of their house. The film relates the stories of people who survived the tsunami and were forced to leave their home, people who came back in the darkest times, and people who came to work from far away, decontamination workers of Fukushima Daiichi. In the zone, invisible traumas are everywhere. There is no life without risk but what risk are we ready to take? In Japan, everyone wishes to forget and go forward, but the traces can not be erased that easily.

THE SHADOW PROJECT (link is external)

Canada, 2020, Director and Producer: Teresa D’Elia, Experimantal Documentary, 5 min - The Shadow Project has taken place in over 250 cities worldwide. The event commemorates the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan and aims to raise awareness about the ongoing threat from nuclear proliferation. In Hamilton, Ontario, The Shadow Project is hosted each year by artist Bryce Kanbara (You Me Gallery). This film presents footage from the 2019 event and archival material, set to a poem by celebrated writer Ellen S. Jaffe. The piece is performed by poet Nisha Patel (2019 Canadian Individual Slam Champion and former Poet Laureate, City of Edmonton). Film website: https://hope56films.com (link is external)

TOTEM & ORE  ...more soon ...

TOXIC NEIGHBOUR (link is external)

Canada, 2021, Director: Colin Scheyen, Producer: Ann Shin and Hannah Donegan, Documentary, English, 25 min - Eugene Bourgeois had no concerns about nuclear energy when he built his farm next door to the world's largest nuclear facility in 1974. Over that time, he and his wife Ann ran a successful wool business and taught generations of people around the world the art of knitting. They really believed they had found paradise. However, over the next few decades, Eugene, his family, and his sheep flock were frequently exposed to hydrogen sulfide, a deadly nerve gas from the nuclear plant, which caused hundreds of his sheep to be blinded, born deformed, or killed. The industry has denied any wrong doing, but Eugene has always known the truth and dedicated the rest of his life to pushing his nuclear neighbour for greater transparency and accountability. Trailer: https://vimeo.com/609829443 (link is external)

TRANSMUTATIONS: VISUALIZING MATTER (link is external)

USA/Canada, 2021, Director Jesse Andrewartha, Producer: Marcos Fajardo, Documentary, English, 70 min - Transmutations is a multi-year project that explores the history, legacy and radioactivity of uranium mining during the Cold War in Canada and the US. Captured over the course of three years using 35mm motion picture film and digital technologies, the film reveals the mineral and the people whose lives have been impacted by uranium: ex-miners that toiled decades underground, Indigenous leaders and activists leading the charge to clean up the mines and the places that shifted the balance of power on a global scale. Project website https://www.transmutationsproject.com (link is external)

UNSETTLING DUST (link is external)

Netherlands, 2021, Director: Tineke van Veen & Barbara Prezelj, Producer: Tineke van Veen, short documentary, English, 9 min - Unsettling Dust, a collaborative short film project, explores the lived, bodily experience of radiation by focusing on the relationship between post-nuclear landscapes, radioactive dust and breathing. It draws attention to Fort de Vaujours, a former nuclear weapon testing site on the outskirts of Paris and asks what it means to be living with the threat of contagion, with doubt cast upon your every single breath. Film website: http://www.tinekevanveen.com (link is external)

VALLEY OF THE GODS (Dolina Bogów) (link is external)

Poland/Italy/Luxemburg/USA, 2019, Director Lech Majewski, (link is external)Producer Lech Majewski and Filip Rymsza, Co-production Poland-Luxembourg, Royal Road Entertainment, Cast: Josh Hartnett, John Malkovich (link is external), John Rhys-Davies, Bérénice Marlohe, Keir Dullea, Steven Skyler, Joseph Runningfox, Ficition, 126 min, English - The film weaves together three narrative threads: Navajo archaic legend about gods locked inside the rocks of the Valley of the Gods; a story of the wealthiest person on earth, Wes Tauros (John Malkovich), who lives hidden away from the world suffering from a personal tragedy; and that of the narrator, John Ecas (Josh Hartnett), who works as a copywriter at Tauros’s company. After a traumatic split from his wife, John starts writing his boss’s biography and accepts an invitation to his mansion. At this time Tauros’s company, which mines uranium ore, buys the Valley of the Gods to bore tunnels through the sacred land. The shattered peace of Navajo ancestors makes the rocks give birth to an avenger. Teaser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J80EKYiDcMw (link is external)

WHAT TRAVELERS ARE SAYING ABOUT JORNADA DEL MUERTO (link is external)  

USA, 2021, Director & Producer: Hope Tucker, Experimental documentary, English, 14 min - Residents of and visitors to the Tularosa Basin of New Mexico, site of the first detonation of an atomic bomb, contribute to the production of public memory as they offer logistical advice, philosophical reckonings, and plaintive cries about making "the journey of the dead." Made in remembrance of the 75th anniversary of the detonation of nuclear weapons in Japan and the US and the 340th anniversary of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. Made in resistance to nuclear colonialism. "Tucker's way of representing the historical past makes us reconsider what the past historical time should be and what kind of action we should take to commemorate it." Kim Taein, Curator of Museum of Contemporary Art Busan. More info: http://www.theobituaryproject.org (link is external)

WORLD WAR 4- THE REALISM CUT                  

New Zealand, 2022, Director A.K. Strom, Sci-Fi-Thriller, with Campbell Rousselle and Graham Vincent, English, 87 min - The most chillingly real buildup to nuclear war ever put on film. A nuclear thriller with a documentary feel. "World War 4 - the Realism cut" is a special cut of the film designed to bring home the full reality of this unfolding nightmare. Seven years in the making, this is a most chilling nuclear war film. Watch as real armies march, bombs rain down, and soldiers storm the beaches. One family is caught up in the ever-growing conflict. Can they survive as total war is declared and nuclear weapons are unleashed?