In a documentary unlike any other at Sundance, Chad Gracia follows Ukrainian artist Fedor’s attempts to unmask a Chernobyl cover-up – and to deliver a warning as Putin heads to the brink of civil war
Few people know that Soviet officials might have deliberately destroyed the Chernobyl power station to cover up a disastrous nearby attempt to jam Western enemies’ communications. They’re even less likely to believe it when the advocate for this theory is a wild-eyed, tousle-haired Ukrainian artist named Fedor Alexandrovich, fascinated by a monotonous ‘woodpecker’ sound deployed by Soviet spies in the 1980s.
Chad Gracia’s peculiar documentary grafts together two apparently unrelated themes to spectacular effect: Fedor’s absurdist avant-garde commitment to making his art, versus his attempt to investigate what really happened in Chernobyl by talking to all manner of deceptive ex-Soviet bureaucrats. Almost by accident, Fedor and his devoted cinematographer uncover a secret...
Few people know that Soviet officials might have deliberately destroyed the Chernobyl power station to cover up a disastrous nearby attempt to jam Western enemies’ communications. They’re even less likely to believe it when the advocate for this theory is a wild-eyed, tousle-haired Ukrainian artist named Fedor Alexandrovich, fascinated by a monotonous ‘woodpecker’ sound deployed by Soviet spies in the 1980s.
Chad Gracia’s peculiar documentary grafts together two apparently unrelated themes to spectacular effect: Fedor’s absurdist avant-garde commitment to making his art, versus his attempt to investigate what really happened in Chernobyl by talking to all manner of deceptive ex-Soviet bureaucrats. Almost by accident, Fedor and his devoted cinematographer uncover a secret...
- 1/30/2015
- by Charlie Phillips
- The Guardian - Film News
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