The filming of the documentary by the Ukrainian filmmaker Rollan Sergienko, who has since made seven other films on the subject, began on location only a few days after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The film documents the effects of the reactor accident on the surrounding communities and the people involved, including interviews with local residents, and places the nuclear disaster in the context of the nuclear arms race of the Cold War.

                                                                                   (USSR 1987, Director: Rollan Sergienko)

In cooperation with Kino Krokodil, the Media Library of the Institute for Eastern European Studies is showing a film series on energy policy in the former Soviet Union from May to July 2021. Documentaries and feature films on the oil industry, electrification, nuclear power, desert irrigation, and gas production reconstruct Eastern Europe as a space where economic dependence on raw materials and political energy utopianism form a toxic alliance that has disastrous consequences for people and nature.

Film schedule:

05/17/21 Forty Hearts (Sorok serdec)
(USSR 1931, Director: Lev Kulešov)

31.05.21 Kerosene
(RU 2019, director: Jusup Razykov)

06/21/21 Earth Thirsts (Zemlja žaždet).
(USSR 1930, director: Julij Rajzman)

28.06.21 The Bell of Chernobyl (Kolokol Černobylja)
(USSR 1987, Director: Rollan Sergienko)

05.07.21 Pipeline (Truba)
(RU/CZ/DE 2013, Director: Vitalij Manskij)

Contact person: Susanne Strätling