The Babushkas of Chernobyl screening (plus Q&A with director Holly Morris)

30 years after the Chernobyl disaster, some 100 women fiercely cling to their ancestral homeland inside the radioactive “Exclusion Zone.” While most of their neighbors have long since fled and their husbands have gradually died off, this stubborn sisterhood is hanging on — even, oddly, thriving — while trying to cultivate an existence on toxic earth.

Why do they insist on living on farms that the Ukrainian government and radiation scientists have deemed uninhabitable? How do they manage to get by, isolated, in an abandoned landscape guarded by soldiers, and rife with wild animals? How has the radiation affected them these past 3 decades?

At her cottage, Hanna Zavorotyna brews homemade moonshine and slices thick chunks of salo, raw pig fat - though it is strictly forbidden to eat local food. “Starvation is what scares me, not radiation,” she says. That stark choice reveals an incredible journey the women have traveled: from Stalin’s enforced famines in the 1930s, through Nazi occupation, to nuclear disaster. Like the wolves, moose, wild boar and other wildlife not seen for decades that have come back to the abandoned forests around Chernobyl, the women of the Exclusion Zone, too, have an extraordinary story of survival, and offer a dark yet strangely affirming portrait of life post-apocalypse.

*Light refreshments will be available from 17:00. We will take our seats at 17:20.*

The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with director Holly Morris. The event will close at 19:30.

Director, writer and producer Holly Morris

Holly's feature documentary, The Babushkas of Chernobyl premiered at the LA Film Festival, and won the Jury Award for Directing - the first of 20 awards the film received. After its theatrical run, the film broadcast across the world. The story of the film is based on Morris' print journalism and popular TED Talk, and is currently being adapted into a musical.

Morris’ other films include Behind Closed Chadors (Iran), Holy Cow (India), Mana Wahines (New Zealand) and Paradox Found (Cuba), part of the Adventure Divas series broadcast nationally on PBS and worldwide. The author of Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe for a New Kind of Heroine (Random House), and former editorial director of the book publishing company Seal Press, Morris’ print journalism has been featured in Outside, National Geographic Adventure, The Daily Telegraph, SLATE & the New York Times and her film work has received many notable grants, including from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Redford Center, Fork Films, Chicken & Egg Pictures and the San Francisco Film Society. She is also a longtime host of the PBS travel series’ Globe Trekker and Treks in a Wild World.

Professor Richard Taylor, BNFL Chair in Nuclear Energy Systems, Dalton Nuclear Institute

Richard was previously the Chief Engineer of the UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory. Richard has over 30 years of experience within the UK nuclear industry. He is a professional engineer with a background in the design, construction and commissioning of nuclear facilities. Richard is a co-founder of The Beam nuclear and social research network.

About the Dalton Nuclear Institute

The Dalton Nuclear Institute brings together The University of Manchester's nuclear research community. Spread across three faculties, their work covers the full nuclear fuel cycle, fusion, health and social research. Together this community forms the most advanced nuclear research capability in the UK.