In southern Russia, there is a not so well-known region affected by radiation resulting from accidents at Mayak nuclear station: in September 1957, a tank containing highly radioactive waste exploded at Mayak, spreading a high quantity of radioactivity over 400 km. The accident was kept secret for over thirty years until Perestroika, and was compared, by experts and scientists, to the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Adopting an aesthetic recording, with contemplative shots and careful photography in black and white, Sebastien Mez’s film introduces us to this place, considered one of the most contaminated in the planet, and to the people who live in it. A work that leaves in our memory the big shots of the faces of these people, whose places, life and stories have the wound of the nuclear age. (C. C.)
