Day in remembrance of the Chernobyl disaster: 15 films, series and documentaries to see

On April 26 each year, the International Day in commemoration of the Chernobyl disaster is celebrated. On this date, in 1986, in a Ukraine still part of the Soviet Union, there was a nuclear disaster: in the night reactor number 4 exploded. The accident was classified as level 7, the maximum severity. The confirmed deaths were about sixty, but the consequences of the fire lasted months and years. Between films, documentaries and TV series, here are some of the productions that tell about those days

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Chernobyl. Let’s start with the TV series Chernobyl: by Sky and Hbo, released in 2019, it starts a few hours before the explosion and in 5 episodes tells the days and months after the nuclear disaster. Directed by Johan Renck, conceived and written by Craig Mazin, it stars Paul Ritter, Jared Harris, Jessie Buckley, Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgård. He has garnered record ratings and multiple awards, including Golden Globes and Emmy Awards

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Chernobyl – A cry from the world. It is a 1991 film, directed by Anthony Page, which wants to highlight the consequences of the accident. Among the protagonists is Jon Voight: he plays an American doctor, a specialist in bone marrow transplants, who after the nuclear disaster goes to the area near the plant to help his colleagues treat the population. The exteriors were shot on the actual locations

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Chernobyl Heart. This 2003 work, directed by Maryann DeLeo, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. It tells, years after the disaster, the effects of radiation on children’s health: the title refers to a heart problem that was found in many children. Accompanying the director on this journey is Adi Roche, an activist who founded Chernobyl Children’s Project International

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The battle of Chernobyl. It is a French documentary produced in 2006 by Thomas Johnson. Through testimonies of scientists, politicians and soldiers (including people who participated in the rescue operations and then in the reclamation of the area), videos of the accident and other unpublished material, he tells of the reactor explosion and goes down to the present day. Among the interviewees, Michail Gorbachev and the scientist Lev Bocharov

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Innocent Saturday. It is a 2011 film directed by Alexander Mindadze. He tells about the day after the nuclear disaster: in Pripyat, a city two kilometers from Chernobyl, lives Valery Kabysh, a young Communist Party activist who understands the gravity of the disaster but is forced not to speak so as not to cause panic. He then decides to try to escape with the woman he loves

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Land of Oblivion. This film by Michale Boganim is also from 2011. It starts from those days in April that changed the lives of so many people. For example of Anya and Piotr, who just got married when he leaves to participate in the rescue operations. And of little Valery, who before the disaster planted a tree with his father Alexei, a scientist. Ten years later, Anya and Valery return to those unrecognizable places: they have never seen Piotr and Alexei again. Scenes were shot in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, under the control of the authorities

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Chernobyl Diaries – The mutation. Brad Parker directs this 2012 film. It tells about a group of American boys who, during a holiday in Europe, decide to visit the ghost town of Pripyat, abandoned after the nuclear accident. Due to a breakdown in the vehicle on which they travel, they are forced to spend the night in the area. It is a horror-thriller inspired by the novel “The diary of Lawson Oxford” by Oren Peli

The Babushkas of Chernobyl. The documentary by Holly Morris and Anne Bogart, released in 2015, tells of the “Babushkas”, the elderly women who, despite the radiation, have decided to return to live near Chernobyl. Through the stories of these grandmothers, the main stages of the disaster and the following years are retraced

The Chernobyl Plot – The Russian Woodpecker. 2016 documentary by Chad Gracia, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. At the center are the investigations carried out into the disaster by Fedor Alexandrovic, a Ukrainian artist who was 4 years old in 1986. After various studies and research he discovers the Duga: a huge antenna built with the aim of infiltrating Soviet propaganda in Western communications and which, according to Fedor, would be a possible contributing cause of the reactor explosion. What if it wasn’t an accident?

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Samosely: Illegal residents of Chernobyl. 2017 documentary signed by the Italian director Fabrizio Bancale. It tells of a group of survivors who, despite the bans, continue to live in the contaminated area of ​​Chernobyl. For a week, Bancale lived with these people in the alienation zone

The Zone: post Atomic Journey. Documentary of 2018 by Alessandro Tesei and Pierpaolo Mittica. The two enter the exclusion zone together with some young Ukrainian “stalkers”: they are “guides” who illegally infiltrate prohibited places, such as the ghost town of Pripyat. “Chernobyl is the only place where I feel free, here I can be the architect of my destiny. It’s a big universe that creeps into your mind, ”says one of the young people in the film

The last inhabitants of Chernobyl. Thirteen elderly people who have experienced the Chernobyl disaster first-hand: returned to their homes after being evacuated, they tell not only the days of the accident but also what it means and how difficult it was to move forward. Their words alternate with passages in ruins. Year 2018, directed by Franco Zambon

The Real Chernobyl. The 2019 Sky News documentary combines some scenes from the TV series “Chernobyl” with authentic videos, with historical reconstructions, interviews and testimonies. London-based journalist and producer Stephanie DeGroote talks to those who have experienced the disaster up close: the employees who worked at the plant, the rescuers, the families who lived nearby. A direct story alternating with images of the time

Stalking Chernobyl: exploration after apocalypse. Many themes are mixed in this documentary by Iara Lee released in 2020. There is talk of illegal “stalkers” who enter the contaminated area, of tour operators who organize visits, of extreme sports enthusiasts who want to experience the thrill of practicing them in a post-apocalyptic landscape, of urbexers who wish to discover what the place is like now: all people united by the curiosity to enter the forbidden area

Chernobyl 1986. 2021 film by Russian director Danila Kozlovsky. It tells of the love story between firefighter Alexey and Olga, who reunite after ten years. When he decides to retire and start a new, calmer life, the Chernobyl disaster changes plans: at first Alexey is uncertain whether to take part in the rescue operation, but then becomes one of the liquidators working to clean up the area.