Can we contain some of the deadliest, most long-lasting substances ever produced? Left over from the Cold War are a hundred million gallons of radioactive sludge, covering vast radioactive lands. Governments around the world, desperate to protect future generations, have begun imagining society 10,000 years from now in order to create monuments that will speak across the time. Part observational essay filmed in weapons plants, Fukushima and deep underground – and part graphic novel- Containment weaves between an uneasy present and an imaginative, troubled far future, exploring the idea that over millennia, nothing stays put.
Directors / Producers Peter Galison and Robb Moss will participate in an interactive discussion following the film screening.
$10 concession / $15 waged / $25 solidarity
Tickets: http://www.melbourne.foe.org.au/containment_film_screening
About the Directors:
Prof. Robb Moss is Chair of Department of Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University, where he has taught filmmaking for 25 years. His many films include Secrecy (about government secrecy, national security and democracy), and The Same River Twice.
Peter Galison is the Joseph Pellegrino Professor of the History of Science and of Physics at Harvard University. He is a physicist and historian whose work involves filmmaking and artistic collaboration. He has written extensively on nuclear matters, from weapons and secrecy to waste and wilderness. His film on the debates over the H-bomb, Ultimate Weapon: The H-bomb Dilemma has been shown frequently on the History Channel and is widely used in teaching courses.
Official Website (including Trailer): http://
Facebook: www.facebook.com/
The film…attempts to articulate the beautiful and complicated problem of how to render the future a part of the present. It offers glimpses of a future beyond our societal imagination … and goes beyond ordinary documentary filmmaking to bring forward this future image into the minds and sensibilities of its viewers. It is in attempting this communication with the audience beyond the here and now that the film has its greatest success.
? Zoe Jones, Spook Magazine
Is nuclear power safe enough? This question is addressed in a toxic weave of stories of the Fukushima disaster, the Savannah River Site cleanup in South Carolina and the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, punctuated by futurist musings in animation sequences. Rather than preaching, the filmmakers use the notion of waste-site markers designed to last 10,000 years to show the absurdity of permanent waste containment.
? Chris Vitiello, Indy Week
Film screening organised by Friends of the Earth, Melbourne. Contact: Jim Green jim.green@foe.org.au.
