City to host Uranium Film Fest

Issue based

Tackling the issues such as uranium mining, nuclear power plants, atomic bombs, nuclear waste, radioactive risks and nuclear medicine, a three-day international Uranium Film Festival is being organised in the City, feature some of the best films from across the globe. Beginning January 4, the festival aims to bring people closer to the issue through the art of cinema by screening about 30 films from countries like USA, Britain, Germany, Ukraine, Australia, Denmark, Poland and Italy.

Screening feature, short and animation films on the entire spectrum of the nuclear debate — destructive and constructive — from bombs and radioactive wastes to medicine and mining for clean energy, after Rio in Brazil, stopovers for the travelling film festival have been Portugal and Germany before India. The film festival will stop in seven different cities – Delhi, Shillong, Ranchi, Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai.

In Delhi, the festival will open with the screening of Atomic Bombs on the Planet Earth, a film about nuclear bomb testing, directed by a Peter Greenaway. This will be followed by Into Eternity, a film on nuclear waste repository, made by a director of Denmark Michael Madsen. Comes next is After the Day After, an animated story of nuke devastation in Dada. The five-minute long film has been made by a director from USA.

The same day, Australian Atomic Confession, a film about British bomb testing sites in Australia, will be screened. The fifty-minute film has been directed by Katherine Aigner. The last film on day one will be Blowin’ in the Wind, a film about depleted uranium, weapons and the gulf war.

During the next two days, the films to be screened include Jadugoda: The Black Magic (India); Yellowcake (USA); Toxic Neglect (India); Sacred Ground (USA); Birdboy (Spain); The Secret and the Sacred (Germany); Burried in Earthskin (South Africa); Dirt Cheap in 30 Years On (Australia) and many more.

Festival-Partner and filmmaker Shri Prakash says, “It is important to bring the Uranium Film Festival as soon as possible to India.” It is being supported by the Heinrich Boell Foundation, the Foundation Rosa Luxemburg and the FAETEC-School for Film, TV and Event ‘Adolpho Bloch’ of Rio de Janeiro. The Uranium Film Festival starts January 4 at the Siri Fort Auditorium.