FHFF Winter Film Series

This was the Audience Favorite from the 2016 Friday Harbor Film Festival: “The Babushkas of Chernobyl”

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 are the 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.

Tuesday, April 4th at the Grange – 7:00 pm

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