| Brief Description: | Glasnost Film Festival Vol. 4: Chernobyl and The Bam Zone. Chernobyl:
Chronicle of Difficult Weeks was made by the first film crew in the
disaster zone following the meltdown of the Chernobyl nuclear power
plant in 1986. For more than two weeks, they fought for the right to
film, then shot continuously for more than three months. A lifeless
city. Empty villages. A dead forest. Portions of the film itself are
exposed with white blotches--radiation leakage. Various agencies
blocked its wider release and Soviet film goers saw the film only
after the director's tragic death from radiation poisoning. Directed
by Vladimir Shevchenko, 1988, 53 mins. The Bam Zone: Permanent
Residents is a daring film set in Siberia. The Baikal-Amur Mainline
(BAM) Railroad is called the longest monument to the stagnation of the
Brezhnev era. "Before filming, we screened miles of BAM films. There
were marches and songs, meetings and delegationsBut behind the screen,
actually, equipment was breaking down, lives were broken and souls
became calloused." Directed by Mikhail Pavlov, 1987, 18 mins. Russian
with English subtitles. |
