Leonids Story

Germany / Ukraine, 2011, 19 min, Russian, English Subtitles 
Animated documentary
Producer: Tetyana Chernyavska

Yellow Oscar Best Animation Film 2012

A Soviet family searching for a modest paradise is swept into an immense disaster. This magically animated film combines drawing, photography and documentary video to capture the surreal emotions of the too-real tragedy: Chernobyl 1986.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

Just a few weeks before the 25 anniversary of the disaster of Chernobyl another name on the map of nuclear disasters was known. For several further generations these defeats will stay as black spots in the history of mankind. In 2010, I saw the children of Chernobyl in hospitals, I spoke with the liquidators, who were still traumatized after 25 years and I felt that I would have to narrate the history of this dark episode again. Not from the view of decision makers but from the perspective of the poor men who had no chance to change their destinies in that uncontrollable course of events. The consequences will last fort the rest of their lives and that of their disabled and unhealthy children. When I began that project in the early fall 2010, I had no idea that reality would turn that issue more relevant again than anybody would have estimated. How many Chernobyls and how many Fukushimas we will still experience?

Rainer Ludwigs