DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER HOLLY MORRIS’ NEW FILM EXPLORES THE COMMUNITY OF UNLIKELY HEROINES THAT OCCUPIES CHERNOBYL’S “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 defiant residents. A startling and affirming portrait of a community that tells a remarkable tale about the pull of home, the healing power of shaping one’s own destiny and the subjective nature of risk.
Hanna Zavorotnya, Babushka
“SHOOT US AND DIG THE GRAVE…OTHERWISE WE’RE STAYING.”
“THEY LIVED THROUGH STALIN’S HOLODOMOR — THE FAMINE OF THE 1930S THAT WIPED OUT MILLIONS OF UKRAINIANS — AND THE NAZIS IN THE 1940S. SOME OF THE WOMEN WERE SHIPPED TO GERMANYAS FORCED LABOR. WHEN THE CHERNOBYL ACCIDENT HAPPENED A FEW DECADES INTO SOVIET RULE,THEY WERE SIMPLY UNWILLING TO FLEE AN ENEMY THAT WAS INVISIBLE.”
— Filmmaker, Holly Morris