International Uranium Film Festival

Film Program

3 pm - BUILDING BOMBS (4 K RESTORATION)

USA, 2024, Directors and Producers; Mark Mori and Susan J. Robinson, 55 min, documentary, Academy Award nominated Building Bombs, in a new 4k film restoration, revisits the glory days of the atomic age, its legacy of nuclear weapons waste, and its troubling questions still unanswered. Insider stories and rare archival footage reveal the inner workings of one of the world’s largest nuclear bomb plants and its toll on the environment and human hearts.

Of historical interest, the film sparked a movement by ordinary people and rock stars that changed U.S. national policy. With the abandonment of nuclear treaties by the world’s superpowers and call for the use of nuclear weapons, Building Bombs provides key insights and impetus to tackle these issues for audiences today. Mark Mori and Susan J. Robinson are Academy Award nominated documentary filmmakers. Mark is an Emmy Award winning television producer, President of Single Spark Pictures, and past Chair of the Documentary Committee of the Producers Guild of America. He has written and directed documentaries, reality series, and specials for broadcast and cable channels including Fox TV, HBO, BBC, PBS, Frontline, Discovery, A&E, MSNBC, National Geographic, and others. Susan has produced, directed, and written for broadcast, cable, and government media and is an expert in public health, risk communication, and community engagement. She specializes in long- and short-form environmental and social issue documentaries, in traditional and digital media forms.

4 pm - DEMON MINERAL

USA, 2022, Director: Hadley Austin, Producer: Nevo Shinaar. Cinematographer: Yoni Goldstein, Impact Producer: Emma Robbins, Co-Writer: Tommy Rock, Documentary, 95 mins. English, Navajo.

DEMON MINERAL is a film about life in the radioactive desert of the Navajo Reservation in the American Southwest. Spanning a landscape perforated by uranium mines, the film follows a group of indigenous scientists, engineers, and activists as they work to secure a vital living space in the Navajo Nation. It is an anti-Western exploring the legacy of uranium mining in Diné Bikeyah, the sacred homelands of the Navajo.

There, 523 unremediated mines scatter across an area the size of West Virginia. Water, air, traditions, and livelihoods have been threatened by contamination for the last four generations. Some Diné adhere to the tenets in the following origin story: there is a demon who lives in the earth. He is content enough there, and will bother no-one unless disturbed, having been laid there by a formidable warrior. Uranium, for millions of years to come, is perhaps this demon made real. 'Demon Mineral' won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at Slamdance Film Festival 2024. Film info: https://www.redfordcenter.org/films/demon-mineral/

Director Hadley Austin is a writer, filmmaker, photographer, researcher, and producer. She is, alongside Yoni Goldstein, one half of Formidable Entities. Hadley’s work as a writer, documentarian and artist is rooted in historical research, social justice, and the natural world. Everything from dogsled races to dance performances. www.hadleyaustin.com

6 pm - HONEYMOON IN OAK RIDGE

USA, 2023, Director and Producer: Joe Tripician, Documentary, 20 min, English

A filmmaker journeys with his parents to the secret city in East Tennessee where they were employed to help create the first atomic bombs - with rarely seen historical footage. Throughout the war, Oak Ridge was protected by guarded gates, and workers at the plants were sworn to secrecy. Few people in town were aware that the military was pursuing an atomic bomb onsite; they only knew information relevant to their specific job duties. Under orders from General Groves, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers purchased 59,000 acres of land along the Clinch River. Originally known as Site X or Clinton Engineer Works, the nuclear site was eventually renamed Oak Ridge. With its promise of jobs, the new city drew in tens of thousands of families, becoming the fifth-largest city in Tennessee.

SILENT FALLOUT

USA/Japan, 2023, Director: Hideaki Ito,Narrator: Alec Baldwin, Producer: Rieko Tomomatsu, Naomi Sakai, Sachiko Kamakura, Chieko Watanabe, Documentary, English, 86 minutes

In 2001, baby teeth were found in the Tyson Valley in St. Louis. They were part of 320,000 baby teeth collected for a project half-a-century earlier. Few people now know that the continental US is radioactive.

The US has conducted more than 100 atmospheric nuclear tests at home and more than 100 in the Pacific. Ironically, vast amounts of radioactive material generated by the nuclear tests ended up on U.S. soil. The enormous amount of radioactive material produced by the nuclear explosions was carried by the wind across the continent, where it fell to the ground in rain and snow, contaminating pastures, vegetables and water. Everywhere, there were reports of radioactive contamination. Milk was a special source of concern, given that it was considered an essential source of nutrition for children. Infants, in particular, are extremely susceptible to radiation. Milk from cows feeding on contaminated pastures contained plentiful amounts of Strontium 90. The strontium entered children's bodies, stayed in their bones, and emitted radiation that attacked their cells. The film tells the story of the unknown radioactive contamination of the United States. Written, directed, filmed, edited and produced by Hideaki Ito with the support of a grant from the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan. 

8 pm - DOWNWIND

USA, 2022, Directed by Mark Shapiro and Douglas Brian Miller. Executive Producers Matthew Modine and Adam Rackoff. Written by Warren Etheredge and Mark Shapiro.

Featuring Martin Sheen, Claudia Peterson, Ian Zabarte, Patrick Wayne, Mary Dickson, Lewis Black, Joseph Musso and Michael Douglas. Documentary, 95 min.

Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Mercury, Nevada? The latter was the site for the testing of 928 largescale nuclear weapons from 1951 to 1992. The Nevada Test Site is located in Mercury, 65 miles from Las Vegas. Over the 41 years of testing at the Nevada Test Site, 100 atomic bombs were detonated above ground from airplanes, towers, cannons and balloons; 828 tests were conducted underground. Downwind of the test site in the 1950s, a number of Hollywood blockbusters were filmed, including the Howard Hughes epic „The Conqueror“ with John Wayne and Susan Hayward.

Although „The Conqueror“ location site, in St. George, Utah, was more than 100 miles away, the radiation levels there were so high that when Wayne tested them with a Geiger counter he thought the equipment was broken. „Downwind“ tells the stories of people harmed by theradioactive fallout from the Nevada Test Site. www.backlotdocs.com

WITH PRESENCE OF DIRECTOR MARK SHAPIRO