Friday 30 May 2014

Rio's International Uranium Film Festival 2014 announces winners.

Thirteen atomic documentaries and movies from eleven countries were awarded five Yellow Oscars and eight Special Recognitions at a ceremony held in the Modern Art Museum Cinematique. What an array of films to choose from, though; more than sixty movies, documentaries and animations from over twenty countries! This is the link to the winners: http://www.scribd.com/doc/226956062/Yellow-Oscar-Winners-2014
The good news, for me, is that although the festival is over, the films are archived and you can find trailers and whole films under 'past IUFF's' and look at them again, at the website of the International Uranium Film Festival. The festival also travels to different countries around the world. I'd love to write about them all tonight, but at least I can reference them and write about them in future posts. It's one thing saying " Do you remember that bit in the film where...." and another to be able to say "Here's the link to..." and let people who may never have seen it, understand what is so important about it.
So "Thank you" to the directors of the film festival and their team and "Thank you" again to all the people who made the films.
A complete "First" for me was the use of sand animation in a beautiful tribute to the children of Chornobyl by Kseniya Simonova, called "Eternal Tears" http://simonova.tv/en/blog/article/in-rio
As a child she grew up in a seaside resort in the south of Ukraine on the Black sea, where children came from Chornobyl  after the accident....but let her tell you about it, herself, in this moving little film.
What struck me as especially poignant, although she didn't mention it, was that the the clouds of radio-active contamination from the accident would probably have blown over the very place she was living as they crossed the Black Sea on their way to Turkey and other European countries.

Sunday 18 May 2014

Common knowledge

On May 15th, in Rio de Janeiro  hundreds of people took part in a march against the alleged corruption surrounding the building and re-vamping of the world cup football stadiums and against their huge cost, in a country where the money could have been spent on services to the people. There were protests in other cities as well.
I like the fact that the Brazilian people, who are famous as a nation of football lovers, have the courage and insight to stand up for what is really important.
Not far away, in the same city, in the Modern Art Museum, Flamengo Park, more uncomfortable truths were being aired on the second day of  the International Uranium Film Festival.
This festival is unique, gathering together films from around the world by filmmakers who have the courage to make films about the nuclear industry process from uranium mining, to atomic bombs and nuclear waste. These films are often made with risk to the film makers themselves.  They can show the real picture of what people are suffering .. they tell the truth about wind-born radioactive particles and the contaminated food chain... Sometimes the films are short animations and darkly humorous; sometimes they are fictional; sometimes, documentary. 
Somewhere, they take the facts from being common knowledge to a small community of people to becoming open knowledge in the global community. When you know that the water you have to give your children to drink is contaminated, you probably want the rest of the world to know why.
I strongly recommend reading the descriptions of the films, the directors' statements and watching some of the films or the trailers, which there are links to.  The progamme and notes made compulsive reading for me and left me humbler and wiser.  This is the link http://www.scribd.com/doc/222613160/4th-Rio-de-Janeiro-Uranium-Film-Festival-2014-Program-English 
or go directly to the festival's brilliant website http://www.uraniumfilmfestival.org/en/  and follow their direct link to the programme.




 

Sunday 4 May 2014

Brilliant short trailer for International Uranium Film Festival - Worth going viral.

This is a link to the trailer for the International Uranium Film Festival. I think it is absolutely brilliant! (It's very short). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUTjJ_drmp0 
The festival is held in Rio de Janeiro a few weeks before the FIFA world cup football.
Also  promoted on Nuclear-News

Saturday 3 May 2014

Red sand from the Sahara

A few weeks ago a mixture of fine red sand and dust blew into Britain  from the Sahara.  It travelled thousands of miles before it landed and, within a few days, there were people complaining of grit in their eyes and warnings were put out for anyone with respiratory difficulties. Schools in affected areas were advised to keep children indoors during lunch and playtime.
Apparently, once lifted from the ground by strong winds, clouds of dust can reach very high altitudes and be transported worldwide, covering thousands of miles.  The U.K. met office gave an elegant description and put up a short video of the route the dust took..
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/learning/learn-about-the-weather/weather-phenomena/sahara-dust
I read that dust from the Sahara has been blown as far as Florida, five thousands miles away.
As usual, this set me thinking.
We know that the sand was there, because we could see it, feel it, cough it, sneeze it. It was definitely there. We also know that one of the ways radioactive particles can travel is in dust blown into the air and carried in the same way as the sand. We can't see them and we may not know that they are doing us any harm until years later, but there they are, hitching a lift in a dust storm and no passport control can keep them out.
This week Mochizuki posted in Fukushima Diary that 10,000,000 Bq of Cesium-134/137 are emitted from 4 crippled reactors every single hour
  http://fukushima-diary.com/2014/04/fukushima-prefectural-gov-shrank-fallout-survey-still-10-million-bq-of-cs-134137-emitted-from-fukushima-every-hour/
 I don't think that the radioactivity is just going to stay around Fukushima. Meanwhile, you can understand why some parents who actually live in the area are unhappy about letting their children play outside.
How do you find out about what's really happening to people affected by the nuclear power chain?  One way is from films. From May 14th  to May25th, the International Uranium Film Festival in Rio De Janeiro is showing films chosen from all those submitted, at the Modern Art Museum.
http://www.uraniumfilmfestival.org/en/ 
It's the place to go, but if like me, you can't get there, the festival has a  great website and, from past experience, once the films go up, you can learn a lot about them. They also have a good archive of films, and one of them is Abita  a short animated film about children who can't play outside because of the radioactive contamination. It's about their dreams and realities and you can watch it at this link.:
http://www.uraniumfilmfestival.org/en/arquives/films/462-en/past-iuffs/iuff-2013/usa-2014/new-york-city/sunday-feb-16/at-1-30pm/1121-abita-children-from-fukushimaI  
Abita is a beautifully told story, full of poetry and imagery. I just wish it hadn't had to be made.