A story about loneliness, survival, poverty, hope, and yes, also about love between two people surrounded by a colourless, scentless yet permanent threat of radiation.
Chernobyl, 26 April 1986.
Due to a failed nuclear test and the explosion of a reactor, the lives of people in and around the city of Pripyat take a drastic turn. Some 90 towns and villages in a 30-kilometre radius around the reactor are evacuated.
Pétro and Nadia, a couple born and raised in Zvizdal, refused to evacuate. They decided to stay in their village. Zvizdal shows them, now well into their 80s, as they indestructibly carry on their lives in the contaminated zone, in a self-imposed isolation. For five years, BERLIN travelled twice a year to Chernobyl in order to spend time with them and follow their lives and their decisions.
How do people cope with a seclusion that lasts years? How does such a couple manage growing older? What if one of them were to die? With Zvizdal, BERLIN has created a beautiful and penetrating portrait of a small history in a big world.
NE + EN subtitles
ABOUT BERLIN
Projects by BERLIN always start in a city or region somewhere in this world. Their documentary and interdisciplinary working methods are characteristic of their entire oeuvre. From their focus on a specific research issue, BERLIN make use of different media, depending on the content and substance of the specific project.
