The Babushkas of Chernobyl LAFF World Premiere
A Film by Holly Morris & Anne Bogart
World Premiere Los Angeles Film Festival June 2015
Documentary Competition
"They lived through Stalin's Holodomor -- the genocide-by famine of the 1930s that wiped out millions of Ukrainians -- and the Nazis in the1940s. Some of the women were shipped to Germany as forced labor. When the Chernobyl accident happened a few decades into Soviet rule, they were simply unwilling to flee an enemy that was invisible", Holly Morris - Special to CNN
"Shoot us and dig the grave...otherwise we're staying", Hanna Zavorotnya - Babushka
For nearly 30 years a community of unlikely heroines have lived in Chernobyl's post-nuclear disaster "dead zone." Stylish and stubborn, these fascinating women have survived, and even thrived, on some of the most toxic land on Earth. They arethe last survivors of a community who refused to leave their ancestral homes after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986. But the babushkas aren't the only risk-takers: scientists, bureaucrats and even young men and women called "Stalkers" (who break in illegally to pursue their video game-inspired fantasies) explore the dystopian Zone and seek out its radioactive grandmas. First-time feature documentary filmmakers Holly Morris and Anne Bogart's portrait of a community tells a remarkable tale about the pull of home, the healing power of shaping one's own destiny and the subjective nature of risk.
LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL SCREENINGS
World Premiere Screening - Sunday, June 14th - 11:45AM - Regal 14
Second Public Screening - Wednesday, June 17th - 6:00PM - Regal 14
