The “Volodarka” science film screening will take place on Thursday, April 14, 2022, at 8:30 p.m. at the “L’Astrée” cinema. The screening will be followed by a discussion with Micheline Draye, Professor at the University of Savoie Mont Blanc, EDYTEM Laboratory, and Eric Brunat, an economist at the IREGE Laboratory, University of Savoie Mont Blanc, and former economic advisor to the United Nations in Russia, Belarus, and Moldova.
ABOUT THE FILM
Volodarka is the name of a village that has been classified as Zone 4 since the nuclear disaster of April 26, 1986. That year, Vasily and Viera met. He was a reservist called up during the night of April 27–28 for a mandatory mission to the Chernobyl power plant. She was alone in the village with her three children.
Today, in Volodarka, 35 km from the power plant, more than 25 years after the disaster: “We don’t receive any assistance to help us stay in this area, which is so lightly contaminated. But we get by just fine with our vegetable garden, a cow, a few chickens, and a pig.”
“Here, we’re not afraid of radiation; we just don’t talk about it.” On the edge of the nuclear exclusion zone around Chernobyl, everyday life, laughter, boredom, songs, and the breath—even if exhausted—of these invisible lives, exiled in their own land. A journey into a non-place of dust and wind. Another representation of reality is emerging. The cursed land is also a burgeoning force of the future, one that we cultivate, one that nourishes all hope.
Through the banality of everyday life and the precariousness of human existence, *Volodarka* challenges our civilization of progress, which, having turned its back on the ancient gods, professes its faith in the atom and offers up great human sacrifices to silence. While on April 26, 1986, an explosion equivalent to 350 Hiroshima bombs transformed the small town of Chernobyl into a restricted zone, we cannot say when the event ended or how far it spread…
FIND OUT MORE
- Explore the 2021–2022 season program for Cafés sciences